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Blending craft and culture, they weave heartfelt stories that celebrate tradition and creativity.
Artisanal beauty lies within rooted traditions. This beauty is more than just craft; it’s a heartfelt connection to culture, history, and identity. It carries the wisdom of generations, the stories of ancestors, and the spirit of communities woven into every detail.
This week’s Friday Future Listers pay tribute to ancestral wisdom while weaving their own stories into every creation, blending heritage and innovation with care and passion. Through their work, tradition remains alive, becoming a living expression of love and meaning rather than something stuck in the past. By embracing this approach, they show us that genuine beauty springs from the soul behind each crafted piece and the stories it carries forward.
Dolchai “Ike” Boonyaratavej: Designing Identity Through Thai Wisdom and Multisensory Art
With a career that bridges advertising, branding, and Thai heritage, Dolchai “Ike” Boonyaratavej approaches art as both a personal language and a cultural force. Also known as Brandman Dolchai, he has applied this philosophy to high-impact branding projects such as Thailand Post, ICONSIAM, and Bangchak, helping craft identities that resonate globally while remaining rooted in Thai context.To Ike, art lives in the details with many brands blending contemporary aesthetics with traditional Thai wisdom. Through his lifestyle brands Zantiis and Sukonta, he has created a range of wellness and aromatherapy products inspired by traditional Thai herbal knowledge, blending design, scent, and heritage into sensory art. This same philosophy carries over to Baan Ya Hom Zantiis, a Thai restaurant he established within his family’s 100-year-old colonial house, once used as an apothecary. The restaurant brings his great-great-grandparents’ culinary and herbal wisdom to life, transforming old recipes into contemporary Thai cuisine.
Together, these ventures demonstrate how Ike merges creativity with cultural memory. For him, design and branding go beyond visuals–they’re multisensory experiences rooted in identity, tradition, and the beauty of everyday life.
Pradit “Tua” Prasartthong: Breathing New Life into Thai Theatre with Stories That Matter
Pradit “Tua” Prasartthong is a leading figure in Thai contemporary theatre whose work bridges tradition and innovation. With over three decades devoted to the performing arts, Pradit has become a respected director, playwright, performer, and cultural advocate. In 2012, he founded the Anatta Theatre Troupe as a platform for experimental theatre that sheds light on the overlooked narratives of stories of everyday people, forgotten voices from history, and characters embedded in literature and legend. A lifelong lover of Thai traditional performance, Pradit’s journey began as a child mesmerised by khon theatre. His groundbreaking approach brought Thai folk theatre arts into contemporary contexts, using traditional forms to reflect on current societal issues.
As co-founder of the Bangkok Theatre Festival and the Small Theatre Society, Pradit has nurtured a creative ecosystem where small theatres and independent artists can thrive. He envisions a sustainable future for Thai theatre, supported by artists, audiences, spaces, and content growing together like a balanced ecosystem.
Honoured as a Silpathorn Artist in 2004 and named National Artist in Contemporary Drama in 2023, Pradit remains dedicated to using theatre to inspire new perspectives and preserve cultural identity. To him, theatre serves as a spark for reflection, a space for growth, and a mirror of our shared humanity.
Rush Pleansuk: Crafting Stories Through Texture, Time, and Thai Heritage
Architect, designer, and cultural storyteller Rush Pleansuk sees design as more than just form and function. Through his work at suMphat Gallery, he creates pieces that bridge traditional Thai craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics, transforming everyday objects into vessels of heritage and meaning.
His approach is grounded in a belief that design must connect culturally and personally. Rush explores the tension between industrial production and artisanal handcraft. He collaborates with local artisans, ensuring that traditional skills are preserved and reimagined for modern living. Rush’s objects–be they furniture, lighting, or functional sculptures–tell stories through material, texture, and time. Their value lies in thoughtful design or rare materials, and in how they become part of someone’s daily life. This philosophy is the foundation of suMphat Gallery, where every piece is crafted to gain meaning the longer it is lived with.
His work has earned international acclaim, including the Designer of the Year (Product Design) award in 2019. His work blends memory, movement, and meaning, reminding us that design rooted in culture doesn’t simply age, it matures with grace.
Jatenipat “JKboy” Ketpradit: Through the Lens, Discovering Beauty in Lost Worlds
From high-altitude hunts in Mongolia to sunbaked deserts in Africa, this camera-toting explorer has spent over 15 years chasing stories across the globe, one hidden tribe at a time. Jatenipat “JKboy” Ketpradit has visited over 20 hidden tribes from the Mongolian Eagle Hunters to forest-dwelling communities, capturing their lives with honesty and cinematic flair. His images tell stories, spark conversations, and give faces to cultures rarely seen in mainstream media.
His journey began with a single dream photo trip to Mongolia. Since then, JKboy has turned cultural curiosity into a lifelong project. Before each trip, he digs deep into the tribe’s history, spends time earning trust, and always leaves behind something, a Polaroid portrait, a shared laugh, or just a good story.
In 2022, he was named International Portrait Photographer of the Year, but for him, the real reward is the connection: human to human, camera to subject, world to world. Whether trekking across frozen mountains or sun-drenched plains, JKboy is on a mission to celebrate the beauty of the unseen and have a little fun doing it.
