Woralun Boonyasurat has spent her career preserving, reviving and bringing Lanna culture into the present. 

These days, Chiang Mai seems to be on everyone’s list. The city has become a favourite for its cafés, galleries, food and slower pace. White walls against warm wood, interiors framed by green, the feeling of being somewhere between the city and the forest. Chiang Mai has a way of looking serene and photogenic that draws people who want to see another side of Thailand.

But there is another side to Lanna: the history, culture and way of life that have shaped northern Thailand for generations. Lanna is a historic kingdom and cultural region centred around Chiang Mai, shaped by its own language, beliefs, landscape and ways of life.

Keeping that knowledge alive is part of understanding Lanna. It means looking beyond the buildings and objects to the people who carry these traditions, the communities that give them meaning and the ways they continue to change.

Associate Professor Woralun Boonyasurat, who heads the Arts and Cultural Management Programme at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, has spent much of her career exploring that connection. Through teaching and preserving, her work looks at how Lanna culture can be understood, cared for and carried forward by the people who live with it.

A Life Shaped by Lanna

Lanna was always in Woralun’s life, even when she was away from Chiang Mai. Her family moved around Thailand during her childhood, so much of the year was spent outside the North, but she would return to Chiang Mai and stay with her grandmother, where temples, festivals and small rituals became part of how she experienced home.

“When I came back to Chiang Mai during the school holidays, my grandmother would take me to the temples. I would make flowers and krathongs for the ceremonies. Songkran in Chiang Mai also felt different from other places. I think those experiences stayed with me and gave me a connection to Lanna culture before I even realised I would study it later.”

Woralun later studied Thai Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, where her teachers took students into communities to encounter Lanna culture first-hand. Much of what they found had yet to be documented, so they had to look closely, ask questions and build their own understanding through experience.

That way of learning stayed with her. Today, she teaches Thai Art in the community, and believes students understand community art differently when they experience it for themselves.

“We can learn in the classroom, but I think going out and experiencing it for yourself is better. Last year, when I was working on a Kathin ceremony at Wat Yang Luang in Mae Chaem, I took the students to make the Kathin tree and then went to the temple. Whenever there is an opportunity to take the students out and do something, I do it.”

Caring for Lanna’s Architectural Memories

Conservation is another part of Woralun’s life, although she does not describe herself only as a conservator. Teaching is her profession, while conservation is something she takes on alongside it. On weekends or whenever she has time away from teaching, she helps temples when they ask.

“I’ve always liked architecture, even since I was young. So when temples ask for help, I work on things like repairing viharns and restoring ubosots.”

One of the memories she returns to is her work at Wat Pong Sanuk in Lampang. 

“The first thing we do is understand the community. We may see its value, but the community may not fully understand it yet. We need to help them see what they have before we can work together to preserve it.”

At Wat Pong Sanuk, some solutions were practical rather than purely traditional. Preservation becomes more than keeping an old building looking the same. It means understanding what a place needs to survive while respecting the knowledge and character that make it part of Lanna heritage.

“At Wat Pong Sanuk, we knew there had been problems with the roof tiles. So we added a metal sheet underneath the clay tiles. You cannot see it, but if a tile breaks, the sheet underneath provides another layer of protection. It is a small innovation based on understanding the problems the building has faced.”

The conservation of the Temple of the Thousand Pillars at Wat Pong Sanuk later received an Award of Merit at UNESCO’s 2008 Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards. Today, the temple remains one of Lampang’s landmarks, with a rare three-tiered wooden mondop that combines Lanna, Burmese and Chinese influences. Preserving places like this helps keep the beauty and character of Lanna architecture alive. 

Building Chiang Mai’s UNESCO Creative City Network 

Woralun later became Chiang Mai’s Creative City Focal Point and helped develop the network that led to the city’s designation as a UNESCO Creative City of Crafts and Folk Art from 2016 to 2020. Her work focused on reviving traditional crafts, connecting communities with international networks and finding new ways for older knowledge to meet contemporary ideas.

Traditional crafts could become a source of income for young people, local communities and women from the mountains, while old techniques could meet new designs and markets without losing the knowledge behind them.

“We try to revive traditional crafts, create connections with communities and people overseas, and develop what we already have with new ideas and new generations. We also work with people who have fewer opportunities, including women in the mountains.”

Woralun views craft as a connection between art, people and place. Each piece carries the knowledge of its maker, the community it comes from and the environment that shaped it. That is why supporting these traditions matters to her: keeping the craft alive means supporting the people, knowledge and sense of place behind it.

“Every place has its own character. Lanna has a certain delicacy, a sense of detail and a softer quality. There is gentleness in the way people speak and in the way things are made, but there is strength underneath it. You can see the same character in Lanna architecture, dance, food and craft. They all tell us something about the people and who they are.”

She points to three artists who, in their own ways, are helping push Lanna art forward. Vassana Saima, a 2025 Future Lister, creates work connected to flowers and forms used in Buddhist offerings. Korakot Aromdee draws from his relationship with the sea, wind and kites. Ronnarong Khampha, another 2025 Future Lister, brings together his study of textiles with his experience in traditional dance. Each draws from a different part of local knowledge and experience, with Lanna culture at the centre of their work.

Bringing Lanna Traditions Back to Life

Her conservation work reaches into traditions that are harder to preserve because they live through people rather than buildings or craftsmanship. One example is tan khao mai hing fai phra chao, also known as Tan Luaw Hing Fai Phra Chao, which translates as the new rice and firewood offering tradition for the Buddha. It is a Lanna tradition held around the fourth lunar month.

After the harvest, farmers bring their best new rice to the temple as an offering to the Buddha and dedicate it to their ancestors. During the cold season, they bring firewood to the temple so monks can keep warm.

Woralun has helped revive the tradition at Wat Ton Kwen, where it now takes place each year with the local community. The villagers approached her after realising that a tradition once practised in the area had disappeared. They began by bringing farmers together to talk about how the ceremony was held in the past, then invited students to work with the community.

“The villagers came to us because they knew this was something they used to have, but it had disappeared. So we started by bringing the farmers together to talk about how it was done in the past. Then we invited students to work with the community and help bring it back.”

The tradition has now returned as an annual event, with the community at its centre. It reflects something Woralun sees as essential to Lanna culture: a sense of joy.

“Lanna is about having fun. Whatever we do, it should be enjoyable. Even when we are preserving traditions, it should still be fun.”

Connecting Lanna to the World

“Lanna has always been a place where people from many different backgrounds come together. Chiang Mai was known as a city of twelve languages. So when foreigners come to live with us or learn from us, it is not something new. This has been part of our history for hundreds of years.”

Each year, Japanese students travel from Tokyo to Chiang Mai to learn about Lanna culture with Woralun. She helps guide them through temples and local communities, giving them the chance to experience Lanna beyond the usual tourist routes. Some schools and universities return every year, creating ongoing exchanges between visitors and local communities.

More than that, in 2022, she published Science, Art, Spirituality: Lanna Vihara, a book exploring the meaning, development and beliefs behind Lanna viharns. She is also writing about her own conservation work with communities, sharing the process, challenges and how people find solutions together. One idea runs through her work: resources should not define what a community can achieve.

“We may not have money, but we have our hearts and our hands. We have networks, friends, knowledge and skills. Don’t let the words ‘there is no money’ decide the future of a community.”