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

It begins quietly, without fanfare – 50 canvases, each one a pulse of unfiltered feeling. The artists are all people with down syndrome, and for once, no one has told them what art should look like. They paint as they wish, unbothered by rules or the myth of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. The colours are often jubilant, sometimes contemplative, always honest. Wander long enough and you’ll notice there’s no coded message to decode, no clever irony to catch. The works simply exist, as their makers do, with an ease that most of us have forgotten. It’s a rare thing – to be invited into a world where the point isn’t perfection but sincerity. Standing before these pieces, you realise it’s less about art as an object and more about the courage of being entirely oneself. August 14-31. Free. MOCA Bangkok, 10am-6pm  

Somewhere between silence and stillness, William Barrington-Binns has carved out a space that resists urgency. Each piece is a quiet act of devotion, the product of more than 60,000 hours spent in meticulous repetition, in what he describes as ‘art with breath.’ Rooted in the Japanese notion of Takumi – that deep, almost monastic pursuit of mastery – the work edges close to ritual. Photography and digital process are tools, yes, but they behave more like instruments in a windless orchestra, reverberating with something just beneath the surface. The result is deceptively simple. Still images that somehow seem to exhale, holding time like it’s a bird in the hand. August 9-October 1. B120-300 at the door. 5/F, MOCA Bangkok, 10am-6pm

In Bangkok, something strange is happening on the banks of the Chao Phraya – and it’s glowing blond. Iconsiam has become ground zero for Dragon Ball fever, hosting the largest exhibition the franchise has ever staged. A full-throttle homage to the Super Saiyan universe in all its loud, spiky, slow-motion glory. Iconic battle scenes have been pulled from the anime and built to scale, letting visitors wander through Namek like it's Sunday shopping. More than 40 life-sized figures lurk in corners and float mid-air, poised for battle or just waiting to be in your selfies. There's Kamehameha practice, a Dragon Ball scavenger hunt via app, even fusion zones. It’s half playground, half pilgrimage – and entirely designed for those who never quite left their Goku era behind.  Until October 19. B400-1,110 via here. Attraction Hall, Iconsiam, 10.30am-8.30pm

It begins as a forest, though not quite the kind you step into with boots and insect repellent. This one is built indoors, thick with light and shadow, where the air smells faintly of rain and the perfumes of Phu Ta Wan. The exhibition imagines Thailand’s tropical rainforest as something more than a landscape – it becomes a stand-in for the human mind, layered and restless, full of places that rarely see daylight. Between glowing installations and slow-moving colours there are questions hidden in mirrors, small quizzes that promise to show you something you didn’t realise was there, seven bottled scents that behave like riddles. By the end you leave a message behind, a scrap of yourself offered up to the trees, as if they might answer back. Until August 24. Free. Rivercity Bangkok, 10am-8pm

There’s a certain kind of visual maximalism that doesn’t beg for attention so much as demand it – Hugo Brun’s work is exactly that. Loud in the best way, his pieces flirt with chaos: clashing colours, cartoonish proportions and the bold swagger of pop art unbothered by subtlety. His furniture sits somewhere between sculpture and set piece – chairs that feel like they might wink at you, tables that seem halfway to melting. It’s no surprise they’ve become backdrops for a thousand selfies, but there’s more to them than surface spectacle. Beneath the gloss and playful disorder lies a wink to nostalgia, a rebellion against beige interiors, and the refusal to be tasteful in a world that insists you should be. Burn isn’t decorating – he’s declaring. Until October 18. Free. River City Bangkok, 10am-8pm

In a world unsettled by pandemic aftershocks and tangled geopolitical currents, the old maps of power no longer hold. The centre has fragmented – replaced by a chorus of voices, each rooted in local soil, language and memory. What was once dismissed as peripheral now pulses with its own knowledge, its own beauty and fierce creative force. This project turns to those places – not for spectacle, but for something more intimate. It seeks out the forms of beauty that rise naturally from the everyday: myths whispered through generations, folktales carried on the wind, histories folded into daily rituals. These are aesthetics born not to dazzle global markets but to honour deep connections – to land, sky and the collective stories that bind us all. Until October 10. Free. 7/F, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 10am-8pm

MIYABI’s solo exhibition feels less like a statement and more like a quiet return – to instinct, to breath, to the parts of the self we forget until something wild reminds us. Her work drifts between the external and the internal, sketching out a forest that exists both in the world and within the body. Birds are everywhere – perched in brushstrokes, embedded in clay, hovering just out of reach. They aren’t decorative. They’re messengers, mirrors, sometimes ghosts. The show unfolds in paintings, ceramics and mixed media that speak softly but persist, like the sound of wings in the distance. This isn’t environmentalism as warning siren. It’s slower, more intimate – a memory, a sensation, a spiritual echo. The earth fades, and with it, something internal dims too. MIYABI asks us to notice, and maybe, to return. August 8-September 9. Free. Ground Bangkok, 7.30am-5pm 

In Italy, pizza isn’t just dinner – it’s ritual, conversation, a reason to linger at the table. Channeling that spirit, Executive Chef Andrea Accordi has taken the country’s most democratic dish and spun it into something entirely new: an eight-course journey that teases the line between tradition and theatre. Each round arrives like a small revelation – blistered just so at 365°C, topped with fleeting seasonal flavours, and layered with the kind of precision that never feels too precious. The menu moves from feather-light to unapologetically rich, stitched together by Accordi’s quiet humour and unmistakable touch. This isn’t pizza as comfort, or nostalgia – it’s pizza as invitation. To sit longer. To share more. To taste something familiar, and not recognise it at all. Every Friday-Sunday. Starts at B2,500. Reserve via 02-032-0885. Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok, 7pm onwards  

There’s a curious magic in stepping back millions of years – a chance to wander a world before ours, where giant creatures roamed freely. This event offers just that: an immersive trek alongside Thai dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts, as if the clock has unwound to a forgotten era. Each step pulls you deeper into a landscape shaped by colossal terrestrial rulers, their shadows still lingering in the imagination. It’s less a simple exhibition and more a portal to ancient earth, where awe and curiosity collide. For anyone who’s ever been fascinated by the primeval, this is an invitation to experience wonder unfiltered – a rare glimpse of a world lost but never forgotten. July 1-November 2. B150-350 at the door. Museum Pier, 10am-6pm

In Another Space feels like a whispered conversation between two minds entwined yet distinct, a dialogue painted across canvases that echo shared dreams and quietly entwined lives. Sadaf and R.M. Naeem trace motifs that ripple through their work – nature, memory and identity – each brushstroke conjuring connection and divergence. Rooted in their Pakistani heritage yet unbound by it, the pair embrace disruption as a kind of freedom. R.M. Naeem’s self-description as ‘international citizens of the world’ isn’t empty rhetoric but a call to rethink belonging beyond borders and history. Their paintings unfold like a ritual – Sadaf’s canvases pulse with foliage caught in rain, while R.M. opens the sky, sunlight piercing through. Together they map a landscape where heritage yields to selfhood and possibility dawns anew. Until August 31. Free. MATDOT Art Centre, 10am-6pm