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

Calling all book lovers and drink enthusiasts.  Bangkok’s chillest book festival returns with free entry across  10 leisurely days of reading, browsing and casual day drinking. Vistors are encouraged to settle in with a book and a cold drink while exploring craft markets, workshops, live music sessions and talks from fellow literary obsessives. Honestly, it feels less like a festival and more like a very well-organised excuse to keep adding books to your already dangerous reading pile while staying pleasantly hydrated.  June 26-July 5. Singha Complex. 11am-10pm

Pride Month brings a compelling reason to make tracks for Yaowarat, where new contemporary gallery Adult Material opens its doors with Against the Grain on June 18. Tucked among the neighbourhood’s glowing alleyways, the inaugural exhibition assembles artists from Bangkok, Berlin, Singapore and New York whose work probes identity, masculinity and the stories societies tell about belonging. Across sculpture, photography, installation and design, inherited symbols take on fresh meaning while intimacy, desire and power come under scrutiny. Expect standout contributions from Shen Wei, Oat Montien, Dylan Chan, Gregor Jahner and Thyme Neelaphanakul, alongside plenty to spark conversation long after you leave. June 18-August 15. Free entry. Adult Material. 1pm-6pm

Glass rarely gets top billing in an exhibition, but Thai artist Jakapan Vilasineekul makes a convincing case. His latest solo presentation gathers a new series of kiln-formed works made from layered float glass, the same material commonly found in office towers, shopfronts and apartment blocks across the city. Across the gallery, geometric forms, coloured panels and carefully arranged grids shift as daylight changes and visitors move around the room. Shadows fall across walls and floors, becoming part of the display. Drawing on architecture and the way glass shapes everyday experience, Vilasineekul turns a familiar building material into a quiet study of light, space and perception. June 13-July 11. Free entry. Richard Koh Fine Art Bangkok. 4 pm-7pm

Bangkok’s Pride Month curtain call comes courtesy of YUMM, which skips the post-parade speeches and heads straight for the dancefloor. The LGBTQIA+ party collective rounds off the season with a late-night gathering built around good music, good company and zero tolerance for bigotry of any kind. Heading the bill is New Zealand selector HALFQUEEN, whose globe-spanning sets stitch together gqom, footwork, Jersey club and techno with an infectious sense of celebration. Sriracha Czaddy, Digital Cherub, Gres.teh, JWP, Club Mascot and Issy join the line-up, keeping bodies moving until the lights come up. July 3. B400-600 via here. Mustache Bangkok. 10pm onewards

Cute, crafty and proudly DIY, PUBPEAB Zine Fair returns for its third edition with stacks of handmade books, indie publications and collectible oddities from artists across the community. This year’s theme, ‘The Zine Factory’, transforms the venue into a playful production line where visitors can experiment with making their own zines while picking up new techniques along the way. Fabric-printing specialists Studio2B and risograph masters Haptic Editions also join the programme with workshops and open sessions under the banner ‘The Make Space’. Fancy showing your own handmade publication? Applications for exhibitors are now open here, so aspiring zinesters should probably start scribbling. July 4-5. Free entry. GalileOasis Theatre. 11am-6pm

There is something about a good hotel brunch that slowly wipes out the rest of your plans for the day, and Waldorf Astoria Bangkok seems fully aware of that. The hotel has launched a monthly Saturday Brunch at The Brasserie, running on the first Saturday of every month from noon-3pm, built for the sort of weekends where nobody is in any particular rush to leave. The seafood section lands first and unapologetically big, with towers stacked with oysters, lobster, river prawns, scallops alongside a roaming caviar trolley. Waldorf Astoria’s signature eggs benedict makes an appearance too, while foie gras stations and carving counters keep the whole thing firmly in leisurely celebration territory. From there, the menu shifts between international mains and richer Asian comfort dishes. Pan-seared snow fish, smoked duck breast, sous vide beef short rib and creamy crab capellini sit alongside Peking duck, suckling pig and barbecue pork. Dessert keeps the momentum going with a chocolate fountain, pastries, lychee-yuzu creations and enough cake to justify quietly cancelling your evening plans afterwards.From B3,550++ per person. The Brasserie, Waldorf Astoria Bangkok. Advance booking recommended. First Saturday of every month, 12pm-3pm. Upcoming dates include June 6, July 4, August 12 (special H.M. The Queen Mother’s Birthday edition), September 5, October 3, November 7 and December 5

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

Yaowarat welcomes the Bangkok debut of Filipino artist and sculptor Jinggoy Buensuceso with Cosmic Bloom, an immersive solo exhibition taking over Luenrit. Known as one of the Philippines’ leading contemporary sculptors, Buensuceso builds large-scale installations from industrial materials, shaping them through an origami-inspired visual language that explores motion, tension and constant change. Spread across multiple levels, Cosmic Bloom follows a journey of entry, expansion and release. Here, sculpture becomes an environment to move through rather than something viewed from a distance. The result is a striking exploration of perception, consciousness and our place within the wider universe. June 4-July 28. Free entry. Luenrit Yaowarat. 9am-5pm

(In)visible Presence opens Dib Bangkok with a quiet confidence. Think a painted gust of wind, music shaped by half-remembered summers and the soft trace of herbal medicine lingering longer than expected. The show asks how we hold on to what matters when it cannot be seen, while also nodding to the many people, some now gone, who helped turn this museum from idea to place. Drawn from a collection built across three decades and widened through fresh collaborations, the exhibition gathers 81 works by 40 contemporary artists, several new to Thailand. Sound, scent and light do much of the talking. Across three floors, everyday materials shift, memories blur and imagination fills the gaps. A special focus on Montien Boonma closes the journey, offering space for reflection, healing and a slower way of looking. December 21-August 3 2026. B150-700 via here. Dib Bangkok, 10am-6pm

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