Diyan Achjadi was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and lives and works in Vancouver, Canada.

Their formative years were spent moving between multiple educational, political, and cultural systems. Through drawing, printmaking, and animation, they use modes of fiction and storytelling to examine interrelated and conflicting histories of place. Their work explores the ways that surface ornamentation and illustrated printed matter can function as archives documenting the circulation of ideas in visual form

 

They have exhibited widely and their work is included in public collections across Canada and the US. Recent exhibitions include Stories for Futures, Real and Imagined (2024);  Godzilla: Echoes from the 1990s Asian American Arts Network (2024); “Between Line and Thread: Connecting the Asian American Arts Centre Collection”(2023); Carried Through The Water (2022); and  Whose Stories? (2021).

 

Diyan received a BFA from the Cooper Union (New York, NY) and an MFA from Concordia University (Montreal, QC), and is currently a Professor of Art and Interim Vice President Academic + Provost at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada.