Looking for something free to do in Bangkok this weekend? Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) has several exhibitions and events happening under one roof – and admission is free.
From contemporary painting and intricate woodcarving to Southeast Asian dance traditions and an immersive journey through Nan, BACC is especially worth exploring this weekend.
Several exhibitions also close on Sunday, 27 September, making this one of your last chances to see them.
Here’s what to look out for…
One of the newest exhibitions at BACC explores traditional dance across Southeast Asia as a form of knowledge carried and passed on through the body.
Presented by Pichet Klunchun Dance Company, Re-mapping Tradition in Thailand and Southeast Asia brings together research into nine dance traditions from across the region. Movement analysis, field research and diagramming are used to examine how gestures, practices and cultural knowledge travel from one generation to another.
Rather than looking at tradition as something fixed in the past, the project considers how this knowledge can contribute to contemporary creation, research and new approaches to performing arts.
Take a trip to Nan without leaving Bangkok.
NAN FEST brings the northern province into the city through art, photography, culture, local flavours and stories from the community.
Designed as more than an exhibition to simply walk past, the experience encourages visitors to move through the space, listen, observe and discover different sides of Nan and the people who shape it.
This weekend is your last chance to catch it at BACC.
What does a place of safety look and feel like?
Artist Manatchaya Kitprasert explores the idea of the personal “safe zone” through familiar elements of the home and detailed woodcarving.
The textures, marks and imperfections found in wood become part of the work, carrying traces of time and memory. The exhibition turns ordinary domestic forms into a quiet space for reflecting on comfort, experience and the places where we feel most ourselves.
Bangkok’s architecture can become so familiar that we stop really looking at it.
In Take a Glance, artist Thutchai Changsanoh turns architectural structures into contemporary paintings built from form, line, colour and rhythm.
By stripping familiar structures down to their visual elements, the exhibition encourages visitors to look again at the built environment around them and perhaps notice something they usually pass without a second thought.
CORRUPTOPIA imagines a fictional city where corruption has become an accepted part of everyday life.
Presented by Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission, the experiential exhibition uses a series of installations and fictional places to explore how corruption can become normalised and how its consequences can affect people’s rights and daily lives.
Visitors move through six interactive points within this imagined city, turning a serious subject into an unusual exhibition experience.
This exhibition also closes on Sunday, 27 September.
Exhibition and performance posters courtesy of Bangkok Art and Culture Center.
The exhibitions aren’t the only reason to visit this weekend.
BACC UNPLUGGED #7 takes place on Saturday, 26 September, while Poetry Live @BACC arrives on Sunday, 27 September.
BACC is also currently hosting its Performative Art Project #15, a programme of performances running through November and centred around the theme of equality.
That means you can easily spend a few hours moving between exhibitions, performances and different spaces throughout the building — without paying an admission fee.
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC)
939 Rama I Road, Pathum Wan, Bangkok
BTS: National Stadium
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday
10:00 AM–8:00 PM
Closed Monday
🎟️ Admission: Free
With several exhibitions spread across the building, you don’t necessarily need a strict itinerary. Start downstairs and work your way up through the galleries, stopping wherever something catches your attention.
And if you’ve been meaning to visit BACC for a while, 26–27 September is an especially good weekend to go — several exhibitions are ending while newly opened projects are just beginning.
Looking for more ways to explore art in the city? Discover Bangkok’s Creative hot spots here, browse our guide to free things to do in Bangkok or see the latest free events in Bangkok.
