Kaweewat Siwanartwong

Bangkok’s skies remain stubbornly overcast, but don’t let the weather fool you – this weekend the city is anything but grey. The rain has eased just enough to tempt you out, and the offerings are unusually rich, if not slightly surreal. At IMPACT, THAIFEX-Anuga Asia delivers its usual fever dream of global flavours and food industry theatre. Think spice, spectacle and plenty of small talk in chef’s whites. At BEAM, Tijana T – Belgrade’s techno doyenne – returns to Bangkok with a set built for low ceilings and late hours. Prepare for something that feels more séance than setlist. For those craving a slower tempo, Obj: Objects as Art opens at The Salil Hotel Riverside Bangkok, challenging the idea that function and beauty must live in separate houses. It’s design, but with feelings. You could also grab a camera (or just your phone) for the Beyond the Journey II x Canon photo walk. Free prints, no fees, and a chance to see the city through someone else’s eyes – or your own, reframed Then there’s Cinema After Dark, Kimmo Kauko’s dusky love letter to the after-hours life of The Friese-Greene Club. This time, the images leave the shadows of the club behind and move into a new home, complete with interactive projections for those feeling brave or just photogenic. So yes, it’s still raining. But somewhere between a wet commute and a half-forgotten plan, Bangkok is still humming. Read on.  Get ahead of the game and start planning your month with our list of top things to do this May.

Let me confess right from the start, when the opportunity came to interview Saran Yen Panya – Thai craftsman, storyteller and creative director of 56 Studio, known for turning the mundane and the ugly into something fabulously chic – I was a little nervous. In the design world, he’s practically folklore, widely recognised by anyone even remotely in the scene. And me? My design experience is, quite literally, zero. Or perhaps at best, poetic appreciation. So sitting down with someone who spins everyday banality into cultural commentary felt… daunting. I first encountered his name in Songkhla Old Town, courtesy of a mischievous little bar titled Grandpa Never Drunk Alone (cool, right?). I’d never met the man, yet the design – instinctive, odd, quietly brilliant – struck me like a late‑night revelation. Fast‑forward and I’m on a video call, notebook poised, interviewing him for Time Out about his creative journey, Bangkok’s art ecosystem and how he reads the city’s pulse today. Saran doesn’t just call himself a storyteller. He also self-identifies as an underdog – a term loaded with defiance, humility and honesty. His worldview, personal history, social observations and even taste all stem from a place of being second-guessed – and rising anyway. Photograph: Saran Yen Panya   The three eras of Saran There’s a pleasing symmetry to how Saran narrates his life’s work: three clear-cut eras, each a slightly altered shade of the last. He calls it ‘evolving, not reinventing,’ which f

From stomach-filling Western classics to quick Thai favourites, here’s our list of places you can fill up for the day.  RECOMMENDED: The best new restaurants that opened this year   Discover, book and save at hundreds of top restaurants in Bangkok with Grab Dine Out.

Bangkok’s dining scene never ceases to impress with new restaurants constantly adding fresh energy to the city’s vibrant food landscape. While elegant fine dining establishments often steal the spotlight with their refined menus and impeccable presentation, casual eateries play an equally important role in shaping the city’s culinary identity. From bustling street-side stalls to trendy bistros, these spots capture the capital’s lively spirit through bold flavours, creative concepts and inviting atmospheres. If you’re planning a romantic evening for two, a laid-back family dinner or even a solo food adventure, there’s no shortage of exciting options. The city’s diverse culinary landscape continues to expand, offering everything from Cantonese and French delicacies to comforting Burmese dishes. Whether you’re drawn to modern fusion cuisine or timeless classics, there’s always something new to discover. Discover, book and save at hundreds of top restaurants in Bangkok with Grab Dine Out.

If you're the sort of person who slows down at a half-painted wall or feels personally attacked by a good curation, Bangkok will keep you busy. The city’s art scene isn’t just thriving – it’s sprawling, unpredictable and, at times, gloriously chaotic. From white-cube galleries tucked inside half-renovated shopfronts to sprawling museum halls and street corners where murals seem to bloom overnight, there’s no singular way to experience it all – and frankly, no point in trying. Alongside permanent collections and galleries are artist-run spaces and community-led studios with more personality than polish, where work is hung with nails, not pretension. Add to that a packed calendar of temporary exhibitions – changing faster than most people can update their weekend plans – and you’ll find yourself wandering into corners of the city you didn’t know existed, just to catch a film screening or a giant sculpture on Sanam Luang. And yes, it’s a lot. Too much, maybe. But that’s hardly a complaint. If anything, it's a reminder that Bangkok’s cultural life isn’t waiting for permission – it’s already happening, with or without you. We’re just here to help you keep up. Make time to wander through these exhibitions – and while you're out, take in the rest of what Bangkok has lined up this weekend. Below, you’ll find all of the free art and photography exhibitions happening in the city right now, but that’s not everything: don’t miss out on the things to do on the weekend right here. Enjoy. S

  April has arrived, marking the official start of summer. With the city’s parks and streets taking on new life, the cultural scene is also awakening. Museums and galleries across the city are gearing up for exciting exhibition openings, offering fresh and inspiring experiences for art lovers. As the temperatures rise, why not seek refuge in a cool gallery or museum? Bangkok boasts a wealth of world-class art and photography exhibitions, all available to explore without spending a satang. From contemporary photography to traditional artwork, there’s a variety of free exhibitions on offer throughout the city this month. Set aside some time to explore these exhibitions, and while you're at it, discover everything else Bangkok has to offer this weekend.Below, you’ll find all of the free art and photography exhibitions happening in the city right now, but that’s not everything: don’t miss out on the things to do on the weekend right here. Enjoy. RECOMMENDED:  The best things to do in Bangkok The best things to do this weekend  Bangkok’s best spots to live the art life Top spots to see street art

The days are getting brighter, the art is getting bolder and whether it’s genius or gibberish, Bangkok’s art scene is well worth the price of admission. The capital is becoming packed with things to do at incredible art galleries and museums, that span world-class contemporary collections and chic commercial spaces covering the classics to the avant-garde. We've rounded up the best shows in town, carefully sorting the masterpieces from the "disasterpieces" – because let’s be honest, not all art is created equal. Whether it's a bold new painting, a quirky installation or something that makes you wonder if you’re missing the point, we’ve got you covered. Who knows, you might even spot something that makes you say, “I could do that.” RECOMMENDED: The best things to do in Bangkok The best things to do this weekend  Top spots to see street art

In a city where heat clings to your skin long after sunset and the streets pulse with the endless thrum of tuk-tuks and techno, Bangkok’s nightlife doesn’t so much invite you in as drag you by the collar. Every weekend, its dancefloors swell with a crowd that seems plucked from the pages of a street style blog – sequins, sunglasses and a studied sense of nonchalance. But past the queue-snaking clubs and glitter-drenched Instagram backdrops, there’s another scene unfolding. Underground. Off the beaten BTS track. Unapologetically strange, stylish and sonically driven. These clubs don’t just keep the lights on – they blaze a trail. Bangkok’s after-hours scene, in all its guises, continues to confound, delight and seduce. Whether you’re chasing beats in a basement or sipping bourbon under LED constellations, one thing is clear – sleep can wait. Whether it’s the old guard spinning vinyl in converted warehouses or sleek newcomers rewriting the rules of revelry, the Thai capital remains relentlessly restless. Here, a guide to some of the city’s most singular nights out – and the places hosting them. RECOMMENDED: Bangkok's best new bars in 2024

May arrives not with a bang, but a sigh – the kind that follows weeks of blistering heat. There’s rain, finally, though only just enough to soften the pavements and slow the city’s pulse. What remains is a delicate window, a rare pause, where culture rises to fill the gaps left by the sun. Making a stop in Bangkok, the 100% Doraemon and Friends Tour feels less like visiting an exhibition and more like entering a shared memory. A few train stops away, KAWS: Holiday Thailand offers a different kind of spectacle. Here, the 18-metre COMPANION figure reclines in public space like an interloper who’s overstayed his welcome. Playful, yes, but also unsettling – a glossy contradiction of scale and softness. Its presence is hard to ignore, yet just opaque enough to resist meaning. Meanwhile, Kyle Legacy - The King of Crowdwork trades polish for unpredictability. No script, no safe distance. It’s comedy as tightrope – part chaos, part charm – thriving on the discomfort of strangers turned spectators. Nothing rehearsed, everything vulnerable. Then comes grandeur. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in Concert lands with orchestral force. Over a hundred musicians and a soaring choir channel Shore’s score into something almost transcendent. It’s not subtle, nor brief. But in a month like this – lush, strange, saturated – that’s exactly the point. If all that still leaves you twiddling your thumbs, we’ve rounded up the top happenings, late-night antics, curious pop-ups and oddball outings

When Time Out Bangkok released its first-ever digital cover, it didn’t scream for attention. No neon overlays, no overly filtered drama. Just a quiet, deliberate choice: film. Not as an aesthetic gimmick, but as a statement. Shot by STYLEdeJATE (Jate Pokmangmee) – co-founder of Fotoclub BKK and something of a household name in Bangkok’s analogue photography circles. In an age of instant everything, choosing to shoot on film is a refusal. A refusal of convenience, of perfection, of the compulsive need to edit life into something shinier than it is. It was, in many ways, the perfect medium for this moment. Photograph: STYLEdeJATE Behind the lens was a man who’s spent the last decade treating photography less like a trend and more like a language. Through Fotoclub BKK, Jate has been quietly building a space where the practice of image-making isn’t just preserved, but deeply felt – one 36-frame roll at a time. Photograph: Fotoclub BKK A click worth considering Our shoot, fittingly, was done entirely on film. Not for aesthetic posturing or vintage cosplay, but to say, plainly, ‘this still matters’. Analogue, with its grain and limitations, has crept back from the brink and is now quietly mounting a comeback. Not ironic, not retro – just right. ‘You only get 36 shots,’ Jate told me, without a hint of lament. You can’t go around pressing the shutter like it doesn’t cost anything. You have to think. And when you think, it becomes something else entirely. Photograph: STYLEdeJATE

Attempting to put together a list of the 50 best restaurants in Bangkok is an unenviable task. No matter how hard you try, you’re going to be leaving out not just good restaurants, but mind-bendingly good restaurants. Indeed, the process of assembling the following list involved not only signal-boosting some of our favourite culinary craftspeople, but also a painful triage of a host of excellent venues. That’s just how dense with excellence this city is when it comes to quality dining.  What makes eating out here so brilliant is the sheer diversity – both cultural and economic – of the Big Mango’s food scene and our top 50 aims to reflect that. Were we to focus purely on the set-menu avant-garde and quiet-luxury omakase counters, it would be a disservice to a readership that doesn’t just want food to look at, photograph and read about, but wants to eat. Therefore, we include some of the city’s most dazzling palaces of haute cuisine alongside humble streetside vendors. We’re serious eaters more than withering critics, and Bangkok is a city full of serious eats. Hence, we want to share our favourites and leave it to you, the reader, to be the withering critic. Dive in and enjoy the ride!

Somewhere between memory and mise-en-scène, Cinema After Dark slips back into frame – its fourth showing, but the first to step outside the shadowy comfort of The Friese-Greene Club. Photographer Kimmo Kauko returns with a collection born not from staged precision, but from lingering. What began as a single shoot evolved into a ritual, as Kauko wandered deeper into the murky, magnetic quiet of the club and its after-hours cast. The result is a series that feels less captured than conjured – fragments of mood and murmur, of bodies half-lit and stories half-told. This isn’t nostalgia, exactly. It’s something more haunted. Now hosted by Photohostel & Photocafe, the show includes an interactive projection space, where viewers become subjects, and the line between observer and scene dissolves like smoke at last call. May 25. Free. Photohostel & Photocafe, 2pm-7pm

In a city that rarely stops to breathe, an unlikely chorus rises – not from rooftops or stages, but from the forest’s oldest emissaries. From Nature to the Extraordinary isn’t so much a concept as a quiet insistence: to look, to listen, to remember what it means to be tethered to something bigger. Here, elephants – less painted objects than living metaphors – stand adorned in intricate patterns, their vast forms turned into vessels for stories we’ve forgotten how to tell. Each line, curved with intention, speaks of fragility and strength in equal measure. Less spectacle, more communion. Less noise, more noticing. This is where the human heart reaches out to touch the wild, not with conquest but with care. A gesture, perhaps, toward relearning how to belong. Until Jul 27. Free. MunMun Srinakarin, 11am-7pm  

Some anniversaries are marked with speeches and toasts. Others, like this one, arrive with cinema, cake and a quietly diplomatic wink. To celebrate 70 years of Argentinian Thai relations, TK Park and the Argentine Embassy host a screening of So Much Love to Give – a 2020 comedy that unfolds across the cities of Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata with the kind of tangled charm only Latin love stories can carry. Directed by Marcos Carnevale, the film kicks off this year’s Contemporary World Film Series with a dose of mischief and misplaced affection. After the credits roll, guests are invited to linger – there will be snacks, drinks and maybe a few shared laughs over how love rarely plays by the rules, on- screen or -off. May 25. Free. B20 at the door for non-TK Park members. Reserve via filmforum17@gmail.com. TK Park, Central World, 4pm onwards

One night, no lines – only rhythm, light and whatever lives between the lens and the floor. Part exhibition, part rave, this isn’t a collision so much as a slow bleed between two states of being. Photographs that feel like memories half-remembered, sets that build and break without asking permission. Nine DJs, five visual artists, and not a single effort to separate sound from image, body from moment. It’s a refusal of neat categories, a mood that unfolds rather than explains. Expect to be disoriented in the best way – drawn in by strobe, stilled by a print, then thrown back into the pulse. This is a space that doesn’t demand interpretation. It just asks you to stay long enough to feel your way through. May 24. B350-500 via here. ETA BKK, 8pm onwards

Bangkok rarely waits to be captured – it spills, blinks neon at the lens. And yet, here’s an invitation to try. It isn’t about perfect frames or polished edits. It’s a call to see, to show, to speak in images – whether you’re armed with a vintage Canon, a cracked iPhone or something in between. The open-call format is refreshingly democratic. Submit your shots and you might find your perspective hung alongside others in the exhibition running until June 7 at Fotoclub BKK. No gatekeeping, no fees, no pressure – just one city and a thousand ways to frame it. Bonus: Canon’s offering free high-quality 4x6 prints on-site, as if to say, yes, your view deserves a place on paper. Bring a camera, or don’t. Either way, come looking. May 24. Free. Register via @fotoclubbkk. Fotoclub BKK 1pm onwards  

There are club nights, and then there are controlled detonations in disguise. Loud BKK returns – not with subtlety, but with a vengeance. Think less party, more pulse: a heady clash of techno grit and tech house precision that doesn’t so much build as erupt. This isn’t your average Friday distraction. It’s a deliberate unraveling of rhythm, with Mizuyo, Ashima and Miso behind the decks – each one coaxing something raw from the speakers. The space doesn’t just hold the sound, it bends to it, reshapes itself around every drop and distortion. Forget neat playlists or tidy genre lines. Loud isn’t here to please. It’s here to confront. To rewire. To remind you what it feels like when music stops behaving and starts becoming something you survive. May 24. B300 at the door. Blaq Lyte Rover, 9pm onwards  

There are nights that shimmer quietly, and then there are nights like this – where velvet meets smoke, and the air feels charged with something just left of real. Madame Rouge steps out with a wink and a flourish, inviting you into a world where illusion flirts with jazz and old-school glamour isn’t just referenced, it’s resurrected. Expect up-close mischief from the elusive Thomas, slow-burn tease courtesy of Black Tulip, and live brass-laced crooning from Beer First. It’s camp, it’s charm, it’s chaos in silk gloves – and entry costs exactly nothing. Go early. Dress like you’ve stepped out of a memory. And let yourself be seduced by the possibility that not everything has to make sense. May 24. Free. Iron Fairies, 8pm onwards

It’s not often that dinner feels like a plotted narrative – but at this Thai craft beer affair, each course is a chapter, each pour a plot twist. Hosted at 137 Pillars, the evening unfolds across five dishes, with every bite met by a brew that doesn’t just complement, but converses. These aren’t casual pairings. They’re deliberate, sometimes surprising, and always pushing flavour into new territory. Thai cuisine’s boldness meets its match in locally brewed complexity – spiced, malted, fermented stories that linger longer than expected. Starts at B1,888 you’re not just dining, you’re decoding something tactile and layered. And at the end of it all, a ceramic coaster stamped with the night’s collaboration – part souvenir, part artefact, entirely proof that food can be fleeting, but memory doesn’t have to be. May 24. Starts at B1,888. Reserve via 02-079-7000. Nimitr, 137 Pillars Suites and Residences Bangkok, 7pm-10pm  

What if art wasn’t something you admired from a distance, but something that lived with you – quietly folding into your daily routine? FARMGROUP’s latest exhibition does exactly that, turning 39 rooms of The Salil Hotel Riverside Bangkok into a vast, breathing Living Gallery. It’s less about polished perfection and more about intimacy – pieces you can touch, collect, live with and maybe even lean on when the world feels heavy. There’s no grandiosity here, no untouchable pedestal. Instead, the works invite you in, blurring lines between artist and audience, creator and keeper. Prices are thoughtful, grounded in reality, so this isn’t just art for art’s sake – it’s a gentle reminder that beauty can be functional, personal and quietly essential. May 23-25. Free. The Salil Hotel Riverside Bangkok, 11am-9pm

From the palm-fringed haze of Los Angeles to the humid pulse of Bangkok, BENEDEK arrives like a time traveller with a record bag. His sets are less performance, more excavation – acid-flecked funk, humid house, sun-bleached electro and offbeat Latin freestyle stitched together with drum machines, shimmering guitar and the kind of crate-digger instinct you can’t fake. Think midnight car rides with the windows down, but stranger. He’s shared credits with Dam-Funk, Delroy Edwards and Steve Arrington, though name-dropping misses the point – BENEDEK plays like someone who’s lived inside the groove too long to care who’s watching. Joining him, Shanghai’s Endy Chen brings his own quiet obsession. Founder of Groove Bunny Records, he spins rare Asian cuts, jazz-funk oddities and city pop gems with the intimacy of a mixtape made for one. May 24. B300 at the door. BEAMCUBE, 9pm onwards

Beneath the soft sprawl of Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park, something gentler than a market begins to take shape. Now in its second year, this open-air gathering leans into slower rhythms – an antidote to the chaos of convenience culture. With over 50 stalls offering goods that whisper rather than shout, the event shifts focus from consumption to consideration. Expect clothes that have lived other lives (Loopers), salad dressings made from wonky mushrooms and overlooked tomatoes (Never Enough) and reef-friendly sunscreen that doesn’t leave destruction in its wake. But it isn’t just about objects – it’s about unlearning. A Satir Iceberg Workshop, led by one of Thailand’s rare certified coaches, offers a deep dive into emotional undercurrents. May 24-25. Free. Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park, 10.30am-8.30pm

Walking in a world where humanity teeters on the brink, and the walls meant to protect are also what keep you trapped. Attack on Titan, Hajime Isayama’s sprawling dystopia, arrives in Bangkok not as a mere manga retrospective but as an experience – one that swells with sound, light and looming structure. The exhibition doesn’t just revisit the story’s famous walls, it builds them around you, as if to remind you where the real monsters are. Among the chaos: a 3D cinema that hurls you into a ten-minute warzone, artefacts from the series frozen in glass, and a four-metre Titan head that stares you down like it knows too much. Until Jun 18. B300-420 via here. Central World, 11am-9pm

In a city where wellness is often synonymous with fluorescent-lit gyms or overpriced smoothies, an open-air park on Banthat Thong Road is offering something different: a weekend where health doesn’t come in a bottle, but in the form of second-hand denim, vegan curry and guided self-reflection. On May 24-25 from 10.30am-8.30pm, Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park hosts a free gathering that falls somewhere between a sustainability fair and a collective existential check-in. Organised by Vtopia, a group advocating for plant-based living, alongside Loopers, a platform for second-hand fashion. Food stalls sling drinks made with oat milk so velvety they might briefly repair your relationship with your parents. Goodmate is offering those. Then there’s POHSOP, an outfit slinging meat-free comfort food with the kind of deliberate cosiness usually reserved for rainy afternoons and existential doubt. Elsewhere, there are cafes for caffeine-dependent introspection, plus what appears to be a minor army of lifestyle vendors, all ready to tell you how a scented candle can fix your soul (or at least your condo). Photograph: soulfood.goodlife Still, the most quietly intense feature may be a workshop called Satir Iceberg Workshop, led by a coach trained in the Satir method – a therapeutic approach so niche that fewer than thirty people in Thailand are certified in it. Participants are encouraged to plumb the murky depths of childhood, internalised shame and whatever else might be crowdi

In the thick of Los Angeles’ sprawl, where sunlight scorches more than it soothes, Ringgo Ancheta – better known as MNDSGN – crafted a sound that feels more like a lucid dream than a discography. Born in South New Jersey, he grew up on gospel harmonies echoing through church pews, breakbeats bleeding from boom boxes and the velvety R&B his older sisters had on loop. By 14, he was elbow-deep in beats, a teenager teaching himself the mechanics of emotion through drum machines and software glitches. Now, for the first time, MNDSGN is bringing his tapestry of grooves to Bangkok. This June, he’ll perform an intimate set of unreleased material and fan favourites, with vocals and keys at the fore. Photograph: Stones Throw His journey, however, doesn’t end in adolescent bedrooms. MNDSGN moved west, folding himself into the kaleidoscopic chaos of LA’s beat scene, finding kinship with the Low End Theory crowd before catching the ear of Stones Throw Records. The label released Yawn Zen (2014), Body Wash (2016) and Rare Pleasure (2021), each album a shapeshift in tone, but always unmistakably him. The last marked a departure – live band recordings, cinematic swells and an ensemble cast featuring the likes of Kiefer, Fousheé and Anna Wise, as if he’d finally decided to soundtrack the film he’d been scoring in his head all along. Though his own records trace an internal cosmos, MNDSGN’s fingerprints are scattered across contemporary R&B and hip-hop. He’s produced for Tyler, the Creator,

The Smashing Pumpkins have announced a tour stop in Bangkok, marking their first return to the city in nearly three decades. The last time they performed on Thai soil was in 1996, at the Thai-Japanese Stadium, back when 1979 felt eerily prescient rather than tinged with longing. This October, they’re set to play Union Hall, with a setlist that could include familiar favourites – ‘Tonight, Tonight’, ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ and the aforemontioned ‘90s anthem – alongside tracks from recent projects Agohori Mhori Mei and the sprawling Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. It’s a glimpse into nearly four decades of noise, angst and unexpectedly tender chaos.Tickets are now officially on sale, which means the countdown begins – for fans old enough to remember the first round, and those who’ve only known The Smashing Pumpkins as a name scrawled across a vintage T-shirt. Heading to Union Hall to catch the show? Here's what you need to know: timings, setlist predictions, and whether there’s still time to secure a spot. When are The Smashing Pumpkins playing at Union Hall?  Wednesday, 1 October. Mark your diary with something permanent. What are the timings? Doors open at 6.30pm. If recent shows are any indication, the band tends to go on around 7pm and finish by 9pm.  When do The Smashing Pumpkins tickets go on sale? General sale starts at 10am on Friday, May 16. Available via Trip.com here. Ticket prices Prices are split by zone: CAT V is B6,000, CAT S is B5,000 and CAT A comes

There’s a quiet power in sequins. Or rather, in who gets to wear them, how loudly, and where. Across the globe, drag has gone from the margins of nightclubs and basements to something more spectacular – more televised, more codified, more Instagrammable. Yet in Bangkok, drag isn’t simply performance. It’s protest, lineage, celebration, defiance. It’s the kind of beauty that doesn’t ask for permission. This year, that spirit takes centre stage at Drag Bangkok Festival, a three-day event co-organised by Yellow Channel and Bangkok Pride, held from May 30  to June 1 at Parc Paragon. Visibility is political. And in a country where LGBTQIA+ identities remain legally unprotected in many ways, the sight of 500 drag performers from around the world gathering under the Bangkok sun is more than fabulous. It’s necessary. Photograph: Thailand’s Drag Star The crown jewel of the festival is ‘Thailand’s Drag Star’ on May 30 at 5pm, a competition drawing in 20 contestants from across the country. They won’t just be judged on looks or lip-syncs. Instead, it’s a showcase of artistry rooted in Thai heritage, filtered through the aesthetics of high camp, punk defiance and sheer ingenuity. The theme  – Thaituristic Drag Scene – points toward a larger cultural ambition: to assert drag not only as entertainment, but as a legitimate, viable profession within Thailand’s creative economy. One with the power to generate income, craft identities and export local expression to international stages. Pho

If you’ve ever paid attention to The Smashing Pumpkins – not just the sound but the mythology, the tantrums, the bald ambition of it all – you’ll know Billy Corgan has long treated music less as a career and more as a divine crusade. He once described his art as a ‘true narrative,’ only to watch, in his words, ‘people quite cleverly try to disassemble what I’d actually built.’ Translation: he’s never been one for subtlety. Or brevity. This year, the band returns to Bangkok for the first time in 29 years. Yes, twenty-nine. Their last appearance on Thai soil was at the Thai-Japanese Stadium in 1996, back when ‘1979’ was still fresh enough to feel prophetic rather than nostalgic. This time, they’ll take the stage at Union Hall on Wednesday, October 1 – part of a long-overdue Asian tour that also includes dates in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. For the uninitiated, The Smashing Pumpkins are the goth-adjacent, guitar-heavy architects of alt-rock’s most theatrical moments. They were moody before moody was a brand. Their 1995 double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness remains one of the most ambitious records of the decade – part concept album, part existential cry into the void. Tracks like ‘Tonight, Tonight’ and ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ weren’t just radio staples; they were angst anthems for anyone who felt dislocated by their own youth. Corgan, with his monk-like dome and Nietzschean one-liners, has remained an enduring (if polarising) figure in music – par

We live in a world where the notion of freedom is constantly pursued, yet we are also the architects of our own prisons. Our identities are shaped by the eyes of others, expectations bind us like invisible chains, and in the end, we drift further from who we truly are.  A Cage of Fragile Heart, an immersive experimental performance presented by RCB Experimental Art Lab in collaboration with Follow the Star, invites its audience to examine the dualities of freedom and confinement. Directed by Pimdao Panichsamai – a Bangkok Art Biennale 2024 artist and award-winning experimental filmmaker – the work is an intimate exploration of the human condition, unfolding in a series of five strikingly raw and poetic acts. Performances will be held at the RCB Forum, River City Bangkok, from June 7 to 15. The performance takes its audience on a journey through the delicate spaces between self-perception, societal influence and the weight of expectations. At its heart, A Cage of Fragile Heart is about how we, as individuals, are often caught in a cyclical struggle between the self we are told to be and the person we truly want to become. The solo performer, embodied by David Bigander, weaves a narrative through movement, voice and space, allowing the body to speak truths often left unspoken. Photograph: A Cage of Fragile Heart The performance unfolds in five parts: In the opening act, Innocent, the human form moves with unburdened curiosity. Unfettered by external constraints, identity is a

In a world where oat milk has outlived common sense and lab-grown salmon is no longer the stuff of science fiction, it seems only fitting that the food world’s most elaborate trade show is doubling down on reinvention.  There are trade shows, and then there’s THAIFEX – ANUGA ASIA, bringing with it an unsettling number of buzzwords, ambitious chefs and alternative proteins. From May 27-31 at IMPACT, Muang Thong Thani, the region’s most sprawling food and beverage gathering is set to occupy Bangkok’s cavernous exhibition halls, with over 3,100 companies hawking everything from drinks, fine food, food technology, frozen food, fruits and vegetables, meat, rice, seafood and sweets and confectionery – and if you’re wondering what that actually includes, you can check right here. It’s all orchestrated by Thailand’s Department of International Trade Promotion, the Thai Chamber of Commerce and German events heavyweight Koelnmesse. Expect 90,000 industry visitors, 2,000 serious buyers, and a rotating cast of regional policymakers, trend forecasters and flavour evangelists. Photograph: THAIFEX – ANUGA ASIA This year’s iteration casts its net wider, welcoming newcomers from Central Asia to Eastern Europe, with fresh national pavilions from Australia, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. The theme? ‘Beyond Food Experience’ – a catch-all phrase for the industry’s growing obsession with functionality and virtue. Expect edible optimism in the form of gut-friendly sodas, brain-boosting snacks and

What happens when two decades of fragmented memories, political tension and home-recorded chaos are stitched back together, frame by frame? In I a Pixel, We the People, Chulayarnnon Siriphol turns twenty years of video work into a flickering constellation of resistance, memory and quiet revolt. Spanning 24 episodes, the project is equal parts retrospective and reinvention: home footage in faded hues, VHS ghosts, government archives, handheld fictions – all reassembled into a fragmented narrative that feels both intimate and unspeakably vast. Screened at Bangkok CityCity Gallery in six weekly instalments, April 26-Jun 21 (Wednesday to Saturday, 1pm-6pm), the work is not so much an exhibition as it is an unfolding. Each week brings a new season – four episodes at a time – demanding that the viewer return, absorb, connect the fragments and confront what it means to remember. In this 24-episode sprawl, what emerges is not a single, coherent picture but a mosaic stitched from what might otherwise be discarded. Siriphol’s work suggests that if even one flicker were missing, the whole structure might collapse. It’s a quiet rebellion against the dominant version of events – one that says the overlooked matters. That silence isn’t absence. That the footnotes might actually be the main text. Photograph: Bangkok CityCity Gallery But the videos are only part of the story. The exhibition itself spills over into a dense installation, where mountains of household objects – hoarded over de

A ghostly trace runs through Fathom in Absence, the first in a series of guest-curated film programmes at Bangkok Kunsthalle. These are not just films, but cinematic relics from the early 2000s – forgotten, fragmented and half-remembered, like dreams recalled mid-commute. The programme resurrects four Thai experimental works, each shrouded in its own particular strangeness, screened on Saturday evenings across May (May 3, 17 and 31).  Organised in collaboration with the Thai Film Archive, the series avoids nostalgia in favour of excavation. Here, the past isn’t polished; it flickers, uneven and unsteady. Screened on Saturday evenings throughout May, each film arrives like a message in a bottle from a cinematic era many have tried to forget or never knew existed. They are not tidy cultural artefacts; they are jagged, unresolved and defiantly strange. Their return feels less like a retrospective and more like a séance. Entry is free – an invitation rather than a transaction – and each work will be shown in its original Thai with English subtitles. These are films that resist easy summary and, frankly, demand to be seen rather than explained. But if you're wondering what to expect, here's the lineup: Photograph: The Cruelty and the Soy-Sauce Man+ (2000) May 3, 7pmThe Cruelty and the Soy-Sauce Man+ (2000), directed by Phaisit Phanphruksachat Photograph: Mae Nak (1992) May 17, 5.30pmMae Nak (1992), directed by Pimpaka Towira Photograph: Kon Jorn (1999) May 17, 6.20pm (a

It starts, as all good stories do, with a beat. Not the kind that ricochets off club walls at 3am or rattles the fillings in your teeth. This one hums low and warm, curling through the palms like incense. It’s not trying to be the loudest thing in the room – it knows it doesn’t need to be. W Presents Retreat is less an event than a mirage. Or maybe a beautifully soundtracked hallucination. Scheduled for May 1-5, 2025 at W Koh Samui and orchestrated by LP Giobbi – DJ, producer and the kind of person who can say ‘craft time’ with a straight face – it’s a gathering of rhythms, rituals and very little ego. Just sun, sound and shared space. But it’s not only music that gives the retreat its pulse. True to its name, the experience leans into the restorative as much as the revelrous. Mornings might begin with yoga on a platform suspended over water or a guided meditation that feels suspiciously like actual healing. Sound baths are offered for those curious enough to lie still and let vibrations do the talking. There’s Muay Thai for the brave, or at least the mildly coordinated. A healthy brunch follows, laced with turmeric and good intentions, where guests swap stories like mixtapes.   Photograph: w-hotels.marriott Then there’s the boat that carries everyone out to sea – a cruise where conversation drifts as easily as the tide. Back on land, the craft workshop doubles as therapy. Local artisans share their beads and their stories, and strangers thread bracelets like it’s summer ca

Just when Bangkok seemed to be in a lull – caught somewhere between monsoon melancholy and midsummer mania – Summer Sonic makes a return like an old flame who shows up dressed better than ever. The festival, a long-standing fixture of Tokyo’s music calendar, is once again packing its bags and heading south. Scheduled for August 23-24, IMPACT Challenger Hall 1-3. Bring earplugs, possibly your therapist. The second lineup drop, announced with the usual self-congratulatory fanfare, is headlined by Alicia Keys. A household name and 17-time Grammy winner, she’s the kind of artist whose booking signals prestige, not surprise. Her set will no doubt include If I Ain’t Got You, Fallin, and that anthem to aspirational real estate, Empire State of Mind – songs so deeply embedded in the cultural subconscious they no longer provoke reaction, only recognition. Alicia's presence will be hailed as iconic, though it’s difficult not to wonder whether the inclusion of such an established figure reveals the festival’s cautious, nostalgic leanings. In contrast, CHANYEOL, formerly of EXO, represents a different kind of reassurance – the hyper-curated K-pop export with built-in global fandom. Having successfully pivoted to a solo career with last year’s Black Out, he ticks every commercial box: chart success, sold-out tour, pan-Asian appeal. What his set may lack in spontaneity it will surely make up for in polish – choreography as discipline, emotion filtered through a high-production haze. Photo

Lumpini Park, usually a predictable collage of joggers, tai chi lovers and semi-feral pigeons, has recently acquired a more curious spectacle. Scattered beneath the trees, artists are hunched over sketches, their concentration slicing through the humid air. From somewhere – everywhere – comes the low hum of cello and violin, threading through the scene like a half-forgotten dream. It feels accidental, cinematic almost, but it is neither. This is Plein Air Woodcut, a public experiment staged by WoodyWind (Waravut Kaewcharoen), a modern impressionist. The public are invited to witness this slow magic on Saturday May 17, between 4pm and 6.30pm, by the lakeside near the playground of Lumpini Park – that small anarchic patch where children outnumber ducks two-to-one. The set-up is deceptively simple. Instead of the traditional easel and oils, WoodyWind has exchanged canvas for blocks of wood, chisel in hand, capturing the park’s soft chaos in lines and grooves. It is, reportedly, the first time he has abandoned the more forgiving medium of painting for the uncooperative grain of timber – and, crucially, he is doing it live, in front of strangers, water monitor lizards and children. Photograph: Woodywind The plan is this: 4pm-5pm: Woodcut in action 5pm-6pm: Printing the pieces 6pm-6.30pm: Meet the artist, collect an original print (free, if you’re lucky to be the first 50) Footpath Band will be playing from 5pm-6pm – a set of acoustic tunes to soften the edges of it all. If not