Bangkok is drowning in art, but don’t panic. Koktail Kurated did the legwork so you can go full culture hound mode this weekend.

In the mood for some art and culture? Bangkok loves to deluge us with exhibitions and festivals at this time of year, so many that keeping track of them all is impossible – unless, of course, it’s your day job. That is where we step in.

This edition of Koktail Kurated is as packed as ever. We have rounded up everything from oil paintings and ceramic art to a comic-making session for social change, Thailand’s top documentary film festival and a bar lecture on queer film history. Why not hit all of them? Life is far too short to pretend you are anything less than a full-blown culture hound.

BATURU Comic Masterclass Series 2: Comics for Change

Date & Time: 20 August, 6-8pm
Venue: BATURU Incubator Space
Admission: Free
Registration via: Google Forms

Comics are far more than just capes and tights. They are also capable of tackling the heaviest issues of our time. If you still reckon panelled art is a lesser medium, come let BATURU’s latest resident Ivan Velez Jr. set you straight. With over a quarter-century of comic-making under his belt at Marvel and DC, the gay American cartoonist is running a hands-on workshop on combining personal narrative with social advocacy, so if you attend, expect great insights into how ink and paper can become tools for real-world activism.

Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival 2026

Dates: 21-30 Aug (Friday to Sunday)
Venues: One Bangkok, Goethe-Institut Thailand and Chulalongkorn University
Admission: Free and ticketed shows
Tickets via: Eventpop

Kids make brilliant artists and philosophers simply because their imaginations are unhinged; they ask the embarrassing questions adults are too polite to touch. Returning under the theme Play Attention: Look Who’s Growing Up!, the Bangkok International Children’s Theatre Festival 2026 proves play isn’t just for little ones. Grab your kids, younger siblings or inner child and head to One Bangkok, Goethe-Institut Thailand or Chulalongkorn University. You’ll find 11 works by creators from 9 countries –ranging from performative to interactive shows – so drag the family along, check out the schedule and nab your tickets online.

Sala Lecture: Porn by Oat Montien

Date & Time: 22 August, 7.30-9.30pm
Venue: Sala Saneha
Admission: THB 350
Tickets via: ZipEvent

In a Thai-language session launching Sala Saneha’s new talk and screening series, our 2026 Future Lister and artist Oat Montien talks American queer porn, cult rituals and low-budget cinema, highlighting how underground legends James Bidgood, Kenneth Anger and Steven Arnold built vibrant visual worlds outside mainstream history – reclaiming stories that have been systematically neglected, erased and forgotten by mainstream film culture.

Potberry: The Blooming Language of Clay

Dates: 10-29 August
Venue: Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Burapha University
Admission: Free

The 5th Burapha International Ceramic Exhibition presents Potberry, showcasing art as the fruit of learning, real-life experience and imagination. It gives artists a welcoming space to share their stories through hands-on materials. A major highlight is Nattha “Tonaor” Charoenpanich’s awesome fused-glass piece, where heat, gravity and time melt glass threads together to show how we grow through life’s ups and downs to become something strong and beautiful.

SUPERNOVA by George Kongmark

Dates: Now until 29 August
Venue: 6060 Arts Space
Admission: Free

In SUPERNOVA, artist George Kongmak treats the body as a shifting universe. Over 60 works, which ranges from video to live performance, merge human forms with the natural world. Like a star exploding into new life, this immersive exhibition explores desire, sinuous and shape-shifting, and the rebirth following a cosmic rupture.

Tiger & Torma: Timeless Tales of Nepal by Sakul Intakul

Dates: Now until 30 August
Venue: RCB Galleria 4, River City Bangkok
Admission: Free

Sakul Intakul’s Tiger & Torma: Timeless Tales of Nepal breathes life into ancient symbols of wisdom and selfless giving. Combining hand-loomed Dhaka textiles and wild nettle with Tenzin Norbu’s masterworks, this exhibition transforms Himalayan craft into a soul-nurturing bridge between Buddhist philosophy, eco-friendly art and women-led traditions.

Hard Shifts by BLIC

Dates: Now until 5 September
Venue: Joyman Gallery
Admission: Free

HARD SHIFTS dives deep into life’s heavy weather, using BLIC’s signature character “Humand” to explore how we weather the storms and find our footing again. The show views the human heart like the ocean: choppy on the surface, but hiding rare pearls in its depths. Instead of dodging life’s messy moments and societal pressures, BLIC turns those exact struggles into visual tokens of resilience, reminding us that we are all in this together – more or less.

Do F**ing Nothing Ep. 3

Dates & Time: 5-6 September, 5-6pm
Venue: Wachirabenchathat Park (Rot Fai Park)
Admission: Free

Good news for anyone looking to perfect their idle skills: Do F**ing Nothing returns for its third edition after drawing hundreds of expert slackers to its previous runs. Head over to Playground 1 in Rod Fai Park on September 5 and 6 between 5pm and 6pm to join the collective rest. There are no goals, no networking, and strictly no productivity – just an hour of pure, therapeutic loafing around with a crowd of like-minded people.

Once Becoming: A Visible Presence

Dates: Now until 13 September
Venue: Bangkok Art & Culture Centre
Admission: Free

Just because women artists weren’t always in the spotlight doesn’t mean they weren’t creating. Once Becoming: A Visible Presence explores how female artists in Thailand navigated institutional bias to build a lasting creative legacy. Spanning two generations, this show bridges past and present, showing how these works by 12 pioneering Thai women artists continue to shape our relationship with art and the world around us, specifically regarding oppression rooted in gender and sexuality.

What the Doc! (WTD!) Film Festival 2026

Dates: 3-13 September
Venues: Doc Club & Friends and Century Theater Sukhumvit
Admission: Free
Tickets via: Website

Back for its 2026 edition, What the Doc! (WTD!) International Documentary Film Festival returns to position documentary cinema as an instrument of counter-memory. Drawing a direct line to Thailand’s 2010 political turmoil through its featured Red Face artwork, this year’s return highlights cinema’s ability to bear witness to history – secret or public, erased or displayed. More than a mere festival, it serves as a space for documentary filmmakers to re-examine political/cultural trauma and events that official narratives attempt to silence.

Special Opening of Silpa Bhirasri Memorial National Museum

Dates & Time: Now until 20 September, 9am-4pm (Wednesday to Sunday)
Venue: Silpa Bhirasri Memorial National Museum
Admission: Free

Celebrating the legacy of the father of Thai modern art, the Silpa Bhirasri Memorial National Museum extends a special operational window from 12 August to 20 September 2026. Integrated into the Fine Arts Department’s Roots of the City cultural circuit, this rare opening allows heritage seekers to explore Rattanakosin Island’s foundational history while participating in an island-wide educational stamp quest.

Unus Mundus by MIYABI and Mookmintra Jariyavidyanont

Dates: Now until 26 September
Venue: Gallery VER
Admission: Free

Rooted in Carl Jung’s concept of a unified cosmos, Unus Mundus brings together artists Miyabi and Mookmintra Jariyavidyanont in a cross-medium study of Eastern devotion. Through tactile sculpture and canvas, the duo maps the changing nature of sacred traditions, fusing human forms, fauna and artefacts into poetic symbols that interrogate how spiritual identity adapts to our hyper-modern, interconnected reality.

Stress Test by Wantaya Thitipaisal

Dates: 1 August – 4 October
Venue: Supples Gallery
Admission: Free

Running at Supples Gallery through 4 October, Stress Test is a solo exhibition by Bangkok artist Wantaya Thitipaisal. Wantaya intentionally overburdens his canvases, colliding advertising, comics, family memories and urban chaos. Moving between soft pastels and moody, near-black tones, these emotive works force abstraction and figuration into a thrilling, unresolved tug-of-war to see what survives.