The best things to do in Bangkok this weekend (February 5-8)

Fluorescent lighting, neutral walls, the polite hush of an office waiting room. The Human Resource Center exhibition borrows the visual language of a job interview and quietly twists it. Visitors are asked to make a decision most of us rehearse in our heads but rarely perform out loud: fill in a job application or sign a resignation letter. No symbolism, no safety net. Whatever you write is sent directly to Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit and actually read, which sharpens the stakes in a way email drafts never do. The set-up feels uncomfortably familiar, like muscle memory kicking in. Pens hover. Hesitations surface. Ambition rubs against exhaustion. The exhibition works as a mirror, reflecting how work seeps into identity, self-worth and fantasy futures. Stay long enough and it becomes clear this is not about careers at all, but the private negotiations we carry everywhere, even after office hours.

Until February 8. Free. Central World, 10am-10pm

Steel doors slide open again at New World Mall, a place once synonymous with weekends, first dates and air-conditioned escape. Long dormant, the building now hosts 8+1 Circuit of Stories, an exhibition mapping Banglamphu to Khaosan through shared memory rather than nostalgia. Eight surrounding neighbourhoods sit alongside one economic strip, from Khaosan Road to Phra Athit and Phra Sumen, forming a loose circuit shaped by lived experience. Residents speak first here. Voices, photographs, worn objects and half-remembered details anchor the work, gathered and reimagined by five artist-designer collectives. The mall becomes a hinge between past and present, holding fragments without polishing them too smoothly. Wandering through the installations feels less like sightseeing and more like listening in on a long conversation already underway. What emerges is not a landmark story, but a portrait of place built from ordinary lives and stubborn continuity.

Until February 8. Free. New World Mall, 11am-10pm

Afro House with a melodic undertow rather than a rush, ALIK builds sets that take their time. Grooves circle patiently, warmth settles in and before you realise it the floor feels held rather than hyped. It suits Bar.Yard, which has quietly shed its old skin. The rooftop now leans into Bangkok’s heat, reimagined by Chapman Taylor with a confidence that feels earned. Thai pride sits front and centre, anchored by the numeral 40, a wink to both altitude and atmosphere. Colour works hard here. Patterns show up on staff uniforms, while symbols like the hornbill, bird of paradise, serpent and sun drift across the space. Nothing screams for attention, yet everything lands. 

February 5. Free. Reserved via 02-056-9999. Bar.Yard, 9pm onwards

Calling it a book fair slightly undersells what the Read Fest team has pulled together here. Reading matters, yes, but it shares the spotlight with an art market. Crafts and handmade pieces sit beside small workshops, while shaded corners invite you to nurse a cold drink with a paperback and let live music drift past. Nothing feels rushed. Time loosens its grip. Hops lives up to its name by folding craft beer and comfort food into the mix, giving the whole thing a gentle buzz without tipping over. A stamp-collecting game adds a childish thrill, the kind you did not know you missed. The mood stays light, sociable and slightly messy around the edges. Come curious, leave with a tote bag, a story or at least a decent memory.

Until February 6. Free. S-Oasis, 3pm-10pm

Stripped of amplifiers and bravado, The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band arrives at Studio Lam in a rarer mood. This one-off acoustic outing, billed as the Paradise Bangkok ‘National’ Molam Project, pares their sound back to the bones. Isan folk traditions, jazz phrasing and folk sensibilities surface without gloss, rearranged specially for the night. Familiar tracks feel altered, even slightly exposed, as if overheard rather than performed. The room matters here. Studio Lam lends a closeness that suits molam’s storytelling core, where emotion sits in the spaces between notes. What comes through is not nostalgia but attention, a careful listening to where these songs began and why they still hold. Innovation remains, just quieter, threaded through restraint rather than volume. It feels less like a show and more like being trusted with something personal, shared once, then gone.

February 5. B500 at the door. Studio Lam, 10pm

RomRom rings in 2026 the way it prefers: loud, loose and slightly unruly. This edition stretches across four floors of the Warehouse Talad Now, five stages stitched together by a shared sense of mischief and a community-built soundsystem that feels proudly overengineered. The line up reads like a group chat screenshot come to life, with Che Wax, Jalbrahim, Adis Is OK, Guidon, Elaheh, Dangdut Banget, Unix, Alex Zaldua, Susha, Isaac & Izzy and Renier & Simbo all pulling their own weight. At the centre sits Nabihah Iqbal, a DJ and producer whose radio life spans NTS, the BBC and New York’s The Lot. Her sets move with curiosity rather than hierarchy, sliding across decades and geographies without explanation. Expect an extended bazaar, a fresh merch moment and a night that lingers longer than planned.

February 6. B555 via here and B888 at the door. The Warehouse Talad Noi, 4pm onwards

Japan Expo Thailand turns 11 and returns with the confidence of something that knows it no longer has to explain itself. Across three days this February, the festival reshapes Bangkok into a loose map of Japanese fixations, from obsessive food corners to showcases that nod at craft, pop culture and newer creative experiments. One minute you’re watching a crowd queue politely for takoyaki, the next you’re drifting past contemporary art, anime curiosities and stages hosting headline Asian acts. Beyond the fanfare, the appeal sits in its range. Travel dreams, study ambitions and licensed collectibles share floor space without judgement. Business conversations hum quietly at the edges. Japan appears less as a distant reference point and more as a familiar neighbour, one that has been part of the region’s cultural vocabulary for years. Consider it a reunion rather than a spectacle.

February 6-8. Free. Central World, 10am-9pm

Sahamongkol Film has been rolling out free screenings for years now, and the fourth edition lands with the easy confidence of a ritual everyone already understands. Nine films stretch across nine nights, projected at the open plaza outside Kasetsart University’s Central Lecture Building. Outdoor cinema has become almost routine lately, yet this one still draws a crowd. After wandering the Kaset Fair with skewers and sweet drinks in hand, people drift over to Zone K, mats tucked under arms, ready to settle in. The appeal is simple and stubbornly effective. Sit on the ground, share snacks, watch a familiar title or discover something new under open sky. Beyond the films, quiet extras wait in the wings, including activities and surprise actor appearances kept deliberately vague. It feels communal rather than curated, the kind of evening that unfolds without instructions.

Until February 7. Free. Kasetsart University, 7pm onwards

Anyone who’s grown up with Isan music knows the feeling. A few notes land and suddenly your body answers before your brain does. Feet shuffle, shoulders loosen and the night quietly rearranges itself. The Modern Sound from Isan leans into that instinct, setting up at Marshall Livehouse with sound so clean it feels almost unfair. The bass hits right, the melodies stay sticky and dancing stops being a decision. Between tracks, the room smells faintly of spice. Lab Krung handles the food side with dishes designed for sharing, wiping sweat from your brow and pulling you back for more. It’s not a throwback or a novelty act. This is Isan culture meeting the present, confident enough to let the music do most of the talking and the crowd finish the sentence.

February 7. Free. Marshall Livehouse, 1pm onwards

Philip Cornwel-Smith has been watching Bangkok long enough to know it never sits still. In this talk, the author behind Very Thai and Very Bangkok traces how curiosity, immersion and a willingness to look sideways have shaped his writing. Outsiders have been decoding Thai life since the 17th century, yet Philip keeps finding new angles by spending time inside subcultures that rarely make the guidebooks. Street rituals brush up against hi-so habits, ancient belief systems share space with sci-fi imagination and the city reveals itself as layered rather than contradictory. The conversation stays loose and personal, less lecture than shared observation. Questions are welcome, detours encouraged. A brief signing follows, with copies of Very Bangkok on hand. Space is limited, which only adds to the appeal. Expect insight, humour and a few perspectives you did not arrive with.

February 7. Free. Register here. World at the Corner, 10am-midday

Chris and Vitaly, better known as Kratom for Peace, return to the garden with the kind of patience most live sets have forgotten. Their sound unfolds slowly, built from ambient guitar loops and art-noise textures that refuse to hurry. Notes stretch, repeat and dissolve, forming a landscape rather than a track list. You listen with your whole body, not just your ears. This is music that asks for stillness. Feedback hums like weather, resonance hangs in the air and time seems to soften around the edges. Nothing aims for climax. Instead, the pair shape a space where attention drifts and settles again, somewhere between meditation and quiet endurance. It feels inward-facing, almost private, despite being shared. Come early, find a comfortable spot and let the evening recalibrate. This is less about being entertained and more about allowing sound to do the slow work it does best.

February 7. Free. Register here. Yellow Lane, 3.30pm-6.30pm

Open Airwaves turns the idea of a recording studio inside out. Set in a public garden, it offers a fully equipped booth for anyone curious about sound, whether you make music for a living or have only ever hummed ideas to yourself. DJ decks, microphones and production tools sit ready, no investment required, no expertise assumed. You turn up, try things out and see what happens. What makes it stick is the intention behind it. This collaboration between One Bangkok and Bangkok Community Radio treats songwriting as a way of noticing the city. Small emotions, half-formed stories and casual experiments are recorded and kept, forming a living audio archive of urban life. Some pieces will surface online, others simply exist. A place to test ideas, listen differently and leave a trace, however rough, of how Bangkok sounds right now.

Until February 8. Free. One Bangkok, 3pm-9pm

Heading to Bangkok Design Week 2026 around Phra Nakhon, consider slipping a book into your bag. Rommaninat Park hosts Reading in the District, a modest pop-up library tucked beneath a generous tree. It links independent bookshops with the city’s green pause, turning shade and grass into a temporary reading room. Shelves hold a thoughtful mix of titles, while bean bags, mats and low seating circle the trunk like an informal club. You can read for an hour, skim a few pages or simply sit and watch the afternoon stretch out. The appeal sits in its lack of urgency. No programme to follow, no checklist to complete. Just paper, quiet conversation and the feeling of borrowing time from the city. It is the kind of place you stumble across, then stay longer than planned.

Until February 8. Free. Rommaninat Park, 11am-10pm

Hands still matter, even now. At Rosewood Bangkok, Made in Thai-Hands arrives through a collaboration with Play Art House, offering a thoughtful look at living craft traditions shaped by patience rather than speed. Curated by independent artist Seada Samdao, the exhibition brings together 10 Thai artists working between inherited techniques and contemporary thinking, without treating either as fixed. Moving through the space feels like travelling across different landscapes, guided by texture, material and touch. Threads hold hours of quiet labour, pigment settles through instinct and surfaces reveal years of repetition. Nothing rushes for attention. Instead, each work carries the weight of human effort and the calm confidence that comes from knowing a process deeply. While the rhythms of making remain central, the voices feel current, led by a generation carrying tradition forward with clarity rather than reverence. Craft here feels alive, personal and quietly defiant.

Until March 20. Free. G/F, Rosewood Bangkok, 9am-9pm

Song Wat turns playful without losing its sense of history. For Bangkok Design Week, the district becomes a walkable board game, stretching across streets that once carried trade, gossip and daily deals. Building on the earlier manhole cover project, this new chapter invites visitors to play merchant, navigating landmarks and stories that shaped the neighbourhood’s working life. Set along Song Wat Road at Tuk Khaek, Merchants of Song Wat reimagines the area as a network of warehouses and shops. Players move as caravans, trading goods, striking bargains with local businesses and slowly building their own corner of commerce. The rules stay friendly, the visuals clear, drawing from familiar colours and signs around the area. 

January 29-February. Free. Song Wat, 2pm-8pm on weekdays and 1pm-7pm on weekends.

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

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

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