An ancient red temple rests on a growing white lattice city that towers into the sky and floats in the clouds. The shadow of a food cart attached to bundles of cables and antennae sits barely visible, smothered by thick yellowing smog. An ornate wat is nestled within heavy green foliage, glittering from the sunbeams able to pierce the dense canopy. This is the work of Termrak Chaiyawat, a video game designer creating interactive 3D environments. Her independent games are still in development but are engaging as digital artworks in their own right.

Termrak used what she learned studying architecture to tell new stories through games, creating digital worlds that users can explore. Her creations are very Thai, centering on lost temples and a futuristic Krungthep. There are Thai murals reimagining ideas they usually express, food carts that capture smog, and digital metropolises. It took her a long time to embrace her heritage, though. “Growing up, I always felt like I was running from my own culture—temples, traditional art, rituals. We’re taught early on not to discuss anything ‘sensitive,’ so I went as far as studying in Italy for a year to try and understand Western art and philosophy,” she says from her current home in the US. But through this journey, she’s rediscovered the beauty and possibilities of Thai culture.

While Termrak now focuses on exploring Thai culture, she challenges it as much as she celebrates it. One issue with traditional Thai art that’s always bothered her is what she says are the patriarchal values embedded in it, where women are subordinated. So, for example, she takes a story from Ramakien where a king recuses a princess who is very ill-defined and flips it. She retells it from the perspective of the princess, fleshing her out as a full character with her own motives and grievances. Players need to search for the princess on the mural wall and are then pulled into a first-person story. Termrak also draws on modern-day issues, like the dramatic pollution in Chiang Mai, and billowing clouds of dusty air often fill her animations.

But Termrak isn’t content with simply complaining: “My goal is to create media that doesn’t just critique the status quo, but actually opens up conversations about where we could go from here. I want to show what an inspiring future could look like, rather than only shining a light on the darker parts of the present.” One way she’s done this is by creating futuristic temples cities inspired by the idea of heaven. She’s also captured history and brought it into the digital realm by scanning 50 temples from around the country to use in her work.

Bringing the artwork of her home to new technologies and audiences is a major source of inspiration for Termrak. Her preferred role as an artist is moving between worlds at their edges: “Having explored cultural diversity, reimagining histories, and experiencing global life, I consider myself a world citizen—rooted in Thai culture but enriched by international perspectives. I’m constantly seeking to merge tribal and cultural specificity with the global context we live in.”