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

Start the year by giving your bookshelf a gentle refresh at Read Fest, a reading festival that treats books as shared pleasures rather than homework. The fair returns with a programme designed to suit every age, encouraging families to wander, linger and discover titles they didn’t know they needed. This edition follows the theme Reading Journey, unfolding inside Hua Lamphong Station, a place already shaped by departures, arrivals and quiet anticipation. Words travel well here. Across the festival, conversations sit alongside live music, hands-on workshops, exhibitions and an art and craft market that invites slow browsing. A dedicated Reading Space turns the station hall into an open library, welcoming anyone to sit with a book for as long as they like. It feels relaxed and generous, reminding visitors that reading doesn’t need rules, just time, curiosity and a comfortable place to pause.   January 23-25. Free. Hua Lamphong Railway Station, 10.30am-10pm

Bangkok’s reputation as a concert capital didn’t arrive by accident and the calendar for next year looks just as crowded. Bangkok Music City returns after last year’s strong showing, taking over the Charoenkrung Creative District for two days of business talk and live sound. Thai names lead the charge, with Apartment Khunpa, Bedroom Audio, DEFYING DECAY, Kosum Boy and Lepyutin opening proceedings, joined by artists flying in from across Asia. South Korea sends OWAVE, 87dance, Animal Divers, Milena and SUAUN, while Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam add their own voices. France’s FÜLÜ and Jamaica Moana from Australia and New Zealand stretch the map further. Spread across Bangrak Post Office and Talad Noi, it’s free with registration, which feels quietly generous, or you can skip the queues with a Priority Lane ticket for B350.   January 24-25. Free or B350 for Priority Lane. Central Bangrak Post Office area and Talad Noi district 

Bangkok welcomes 2026 with a knowing wink as Muse Anime Festival sets up at JAM SPACE, a familiar meeting point for pop culture devotees. This is less trade fair, more shared obsession. Fourteen anime titles spread across 17 photo zones turn fandom into a walk-through experience, complete with oversized sets and scenes designed for lingering rather than rushing. Expect towering inflatables of Momo and Okarun from DAN DA DAN plus Rimuru, the eternally cheerful slime, looming large for cameras. Beyond the visuals, shelves fill with officially licensed pieces and harder-to-find imports, tempting even the disciplined collector. Food gets its own moment too, thanks to a themed cafe riffing on SPY x FAMILY and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.    January 10-March 29. Free. 4/F, MBK Centre, 11am-9pm

Reading in the Park returns for its third chapter after EP2 quietly proved that strangers will happily sit together and read if given the chance. More than 500 people turned up last time, which says a lot about how hungry Bangkok feels for slower forms of company. EP3 continues that gentle idea through the Bangkok Offline Reading Club, inviting people to step away from feeds and notifications and show up properly. Cooler weather helps, making grass seating and long chapters feel like a small luxury rather than a test of stamina. Over 200 readers have already signed up, each bringing a book or e-reader and agreeing to keep phones tucked away. Swapping titles is encouraged, whether planned or spontaneous. The aim isn’t networking or productivity, just shared quiet. A small note of care remains around PM2.5 levels, so pace yourself and listen to your body. January 24. Free. Register via here. The Amphitheatre in Benjakitti Park, 4pm-6pm

This feels like the sort of exhibition you stumble across on a slow afternoon and end up thinking about days later. Jean-Paul De Croux’s abstract paintings sit quietly, asking you to slow your pace and notice what’s happening on the surface. Inspired by the natural world, each canvas carries traces of time through layered marks, rough textures and gestures that feel both deliberate and instinctive. Light slips across the work in subtle ways, changing how colours behave and how forms settle. Emotion isn’t announced but sensed, like weather rolling in. Nothing here feels fixed or final. Memory, movement and material seem to shift depending on how long you stay with them. It’s less an exhibition to decode and more a moment to share, reflective without being precious and reassuringly human in its restraint.   Until February 8. Free. 5/F, Art Jewel, Siam Paragon, 10am-10pm

A Kid from Yesterday returns with a fifth solo outing that feels quietly defiant. Somphon ‘Paolo’ Ratanavaree’s latest body of work steps back from certainty and sits without knowing, a rare move in a culture obsessed with definitions. Titled “Just” BEING BE/NG BE—NG, the exhibition borrows from Camus’ Philosophy of Sisyphus while nodding to the calm discipline of a Zen garden. The result isn’t comfort or escape, but acceptance of contradiction. Cigarettes sit opposite raked sand, everyday habits facing ritual stillness, neither winning the argument. This space doesn’t promise healing or answers. It allows doubt to exist without apology. Being human here means pausing, noticing and carrying on regardless. In a world eager for declarations, the show suggests something softer and braver: existing without explanation might already be enough.   January 17-March 1. Free. Street Star Gallery, 8am-6pm

Hope has a strange way of finding you when you least expect it, usually while you’re still adjusting your fringe in a mirrored wall. This exhibition leans into that feeling, pairing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with digital worlds that nudge you towards a lighter mood. The guide is Blossom Bloo, a soft-glowing creature with its loyal Seed, both drifting through scenes that chart the rhythms of a life lived in four chapters. The route begins at The Flower Shop, where you design a tiny seed that reappears later as part of a vast installation. Summer stretches out in a field of towering blooms, autumn follows with a golden oak shedding leaves that respond to your steps, then winter quietens everything with pale light and drifting snow. Spring closes the journey with a sweep of colour that feels a bit like exhaling after holding your breath too long.   Until March 10 2026. B450-990 via here. 6/F, Iconsiam, 10.30am-9pm

The Imprint Project opens its first chapter with a focus on marks that travel further than borders. Conceived as an international printmaking initiative, the idea is simple and generous: one country at a time, letting each exhibition carry its own cultural residue. This edition brings together 16 artists from Poland alongside works from Pracownia414 Studio, forming a conversation that moves through technique, texture and intention. Printmaking here isn’t treated as a historical footnote but as a living language shaped by social conditions and personal memory. Etchings, presses and layered surfaces reveal how identity settles on paper in quiet but deliberate ways. The project itself acts as a meeting point, linking artists across continents while offering audiences a chance to read the traces left behind. Not grand statements, but thoughtful impressions that reward close looking and patient attention.   Until January 30. Free. Arun Amarin 23 Art Space, 11am-4pm

Czech contemporary art gets a brief, welcome stretch in Bangkok with the return of Jan Bican. Known for treating streets, bodies and public space as his canvas, he brings new works that feel quietly confrontational without raising their voice. Light plays a central role, cutting through shadows and reflections, asking you to slow down and actually look. Bican’s pieces often sit between opposing ideas: exposure and privacy, intimacy and distance, softness and control. That tension gives the work its emotional charge. Seen far from its European context, the effect sharpens rather than softens. You notice how easily the themes travel, how little translation they need. It invites wandering, second glances and the occasional pause mid-step, which might be the point.   January 3-28. Free. Vanich House Bangkok, 10.30am-6pm

The second solo exhibition by Thai artist Krittin Kaewyongphang, better known as Condo Ceramics, feels like a quiet conversation rather than a statement. Curated by Jason Yang, the show leans on ceramics and illustration to talk about memory, self-acceptance and the value of taking one’s time. Titled Fire Me Slowly, the work reflects Krittin’s own path as an LGBTQ individual, shaped by gradual understanding rather than sudden revelation. Ceramic figures appear soft yet stubborn, joined by monster-like characters that refuse neat labels or fixed identities. They exist comfortably, without apology or explanation. Nothing here asks to be hurried. Growth unfolds at its own speed, gently and without pressure. The exhibition suggests that arriving is overrated anyway. Staying present, slightly unfinished and fully yourself, might be the point worth holding onto.   January 10-February 9. Free. GalileOasis Gallery, 9am-8pm