Our picks for the best things to do in Bangkok this weekend

PUN returns to the stage with The Space Between Dream and Dawn – Comeback Show, his first live performance since completing his ordination. Picking up where MUSEUM OF SOMNIA – An Embodied Music Experience left off, the concert revisits the songs and stories that shaped the project while opening a new chapter. PUN oversees every detail, from the setlist and narrative to the staging, lending the evening a distinctly personal touch. Tickets are reserved for visitors who attended the MUSEUM OF SOMNIA exhibition with either a One-time Pass or Four-times Pass, making this a rare reunion with the fans who have followed the journey from the start. July 25-August 8. B299-1,299 via here. centralwOrld LIVE. 11am-10pm

Three decades after Detective Conan first arrives on television, the long-running mystery series gets its first Southeast Asian anniversary exhibition. The show traces the anime's history from early sketches and storyboards to voice recording, music and final animation, offering a closer look at the work behind one of Japan's biggest franchises. Highlights include life-sized recreations of memorable scenes, a storyboard wall spanning 30 years and a screening room showing an exclusive anniversary film. Pick up an assigned collectible ticket on arrival, then finish with a browse through exclusive merchandise made specially for the exhibition. July 23-November 8. B250-900 via here. FreeAttraction Hall, ICONSIAM. 10am-9pm

Japanese craftsmanship has long balanced painstaking technique with a playful streak, and The Superlative Artistry of Japan shows how little that has changed over the past 150 years. After touring internationally since 2017, the exhibition finally arrives in Thailand, bringing together Meiji-era masterpieces and contemporary design in one thoughtful survey. Rather than separating tradition from pop culture, the exhibition shows how the same careful approach continues to shape Japanese creativity across generations. July 25-August 23. Free entry. First floor, TCDC Bangkok. 10.30am-7pm

The photographer Chaiyos Pinpradab returns with his first solo exhibition in 20 years, bringing together 114 handcrafted film photographs from a 150-day road trip through southern Thailand. Travelling from Pran Buri to Narathiwat between September 2024 and January 2025, he captured everyday life, distinctive architecture and quiet landscapes with remarkable patience. The series takes its cue from ‘Golden Chersonese’, an ancient name for the Malay Peninsula. Shot on a Hasselblad XPan panoramic film camera, each image rewards close inspection, while traditional darkroom printing preserves subtle shifts of light, texture and tone. The result celebrates the region without romanticising it. Now-August 9. Free entry. Fifth floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. 10am-8pm

An entire Akha house now stands in the middle of Bangkok, carefully dismantled from a village in northern Thailand and rebuilt piece by piece inside an art gallery. Roof panels, woven bedding, timber floors and weathered household objects all carry marks of the people who once lived among them, quietly tracing a way of life that grows more fragile with each passing generation. The Akha are an Indigenous ethnic group whose communities are spread across the mountains of northern Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and southern China, known for their intricate textiles, spiritual rituals and deep connection to land and ancestry. In recent decades, migration, tourism and rapid development have reshaped many of those traditions. Through memory, craftsmanship and personal histories, The Preservation of Fire by Busui Ajaw keeps those stories alive a little longer. May 15-November 1. Free entry. Bangkok Kunsthalle. 2pm-8pm

Filipino artist BLIC returns with HARD SHIFTS, a new exhibition centred on his signature ‘Humand’ figures, using the familiar motif to consider how people adapt when life refuses to follow a tidy plan. Across paintings and mixed-media works, the artist explores resilience, uncertainty and quiet acceptance without dressing struggle up as triumph. Stress balls appear throughout the exhibition as recurring objects, offering moments of pause rather than easy solutions. Expect expressive colours, oversized hands and characters that keep moving despite the setbacks around them, reflecting everyday experiences that rarely come with neat endings. August 1-September 5. Free entry. Joyman Gallery. 11am-6pm

A long dim sum menu can be intimidating, so Xian Yuan has done the choosing for you. Its new tasting sets offer either five classic steamed favourites or five signature fried selections, each paired with a cocktail or mocktail. It is a straightforward way to sample the restaurant’s Cantonese cooking without committing to a tableful of dishes, whether you are visiting for the first time or simply cannot decide what to order. Until October 31. B488++ per set. Xian Yuan, Dusit Central Park

Craft here reads like a way of staying present. The exhibition looks at time across Thailand and Southeast Asia as something layered and cyclical, shaped by ritual, labour and shared experience rather than strict progression. Makers move between past and present with a quiet ease, holding inherited knowledge while adjusting to what now demands. Objects carry that negotiation, each one marked by repetition. Slowness becomes intentional, offering an alternative to constant speed and easy consumption. Nothing feels rushed, yet nothing stands still either.  April 30-16 August. Free. Jim Thompson Art Center, 10am-6pm

First staged in Cheongju Craft Biennale, this group exhibition arrives in Bangkok following a debut as the Invited Country Pavilion in Cheongju, South Korea. The project grows from an ongoing exchange between Thailand and the Republic of Korea, setting craft alongside contemporary art across Southeast and East Asia. At its core sits ‘Elastic Time’, a curatorial thread that questions how time behaves across the region. Forget neat timelines. Here, past, present and future overlap, repeat and quietly reshape one another. The Cheongju edition sets the tone as a cross-cultural conversation, where material, process and memory carry equal weight. Artists approach craft not as something fixed, but as a way to consider what unfolds now, and what might come next. Until August 16. Free. Jim Thompson Art Center. 10am-6pm

sits firmly in the category of places you keep having to return to. But this time, it feels different. The concept leans on the ocean after dark, when sunlight disappears and whole ecosystems carry on unseen. You wander through shifting light, sometimes above the waterline, sometimes beneath it, with bioluminescent creatures flickering softly around you. Details keep catching your eye. A neon wall answers your touch with imagined marine life. Seahorses glow under tinted light, rainforest corners bloom with luminous flora, and a quiet full moon hangs over goldfish. In the shark tunnel, silver ripples mimic night tides, while Gentoo penguins stand beneath drifting northern lights. Even the familiar route feels refreshed, with a small stamp trail guiding the way. Until September 20. Starts at B449 via here. SEA LIFE Bangkok