aaran sian |ਅਰਨਦੀਪ| they/them

🔥𝘝𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘥: 𝘞𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘉𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘏𝘦𝘳𝘦🔥 This exhibition has been a HUGE labour of love — rooted in reclaiming power, community connections, resisting erasure, and celebrating the voices of the beautiful Queer and Trans community from my 🌠home county🌠 Leicestershire 💖🏳️‍⚧️ It begins to confront how colonialism violently reshaped understandings of gender, sexuality, and identity — imposing rigid binaries and criminalising queerness across the world. Let’s not forget that these laws were born out of Europe, and specifically Britain. George Villiers’ queerness was hidden as a 17th-century duke, but the same laws and attitudes that kept his identity hidden were exported globally through colonialism. A legacy that is still deeply felt right now in the world. Through workshops with LGBTQIA+ groups in Leicestershire, we co-created new artworks that reclaim space, redefine portraits and power, and reconnect us with global lineages of queerness and fluidity that have always — and will always — flow through us. 👁 This is about remembering WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE 🔥 Workshops that informed the artworks on display: 🖌️ Reclaiming Power — a collective tapestry-making workshop with @dosti.leicester where we traced silhouettes onto fabric and collaged, painted, drew, and stitched our stories as LGBTQ+ South Asians. The tapestry is displayed as part of the exhibition 😍 🌈 A portrait collage workshop with a local LGBTQ+ youth group, where participants explored queer identity through silhouette and self-expression. Their layered collages are embedded throughout the artworks. 💻 Made in Our Image — an online collage workshop where we created portraits for us, by us. Extracts are woven into the artworks! ✍🏽 The Stories That Speak Through Us: Reclaiming Lost Narratives — a poetry workshop led by @nikkaayyy_c in collaboration with @queercoffeelinkups where we wrote a collective poem that now flows through the exhibition. Join us for the celebration event on 16th May at Melton Carnegie Museum more info coming soon! Commissioned by @cultureleics @leicestershire_collections 🌠🌺 Thank you for trusting me! 🥹

Earlier this month I created artwork for a mural celebrating 50 Years of Camden Market 😍 So I loveeee Camden Market, I wanted the artwork to celebrate the energy and creativity of the Market and the people who I've met there. I've spent a lot of time there, and have always loved hearing the stories of the many traders and people who go there, some have been there for 25+ years. I love that they are just carving necklaces, making jewelry, sewing fabrics and painting at their stalls. They're from so many different places and countries, but they all belong to the market. It really feels like a place overflowing with creative energy, stories and objects that people have poured their souls into and that represent so many lives co-existing✌🏽 When I was making the artwork, I wanted to embody this energetic spirit, so the person breaking out of the building, and knitting into the fabric of it, represents that it is the people who have crafted, cultivated and grown the Market into what it is today ✨ also referencing it's history as an arts and crafts market 🪡🧵🖌️ and many other things but I'm experimenting with not overexplaining rn 😂 Also you might recognise the giant lips that used to be on one of the shops on Camden High St, I always loved them and the other random but extravagant landscapes of Camden High Street 🙌🏽 On a personal level I've always felt a connection to Camden Town, it's always felt like a place where anything goes and I'm so here for that! Me and my friend used to say we want to run away to Camden and live there when we were 17🌊🥹 and it's where I had my first job when I first moved to London nearly 4 years??? ago (just realised I've been telling everyone I've only been here for only 2 years oops😂) The rest of the mural was made by the incredible and talented artists: @davidshillinglaw - who filled the entire arch ✨ @phoebe.swan @robertsaeheng who created beautiful pieces showing different interpretations of the market. If you're in the area go and check it out 😍 you can find it by Hawley Wharf 💜 @buildhollywood #art #mural #london #publicart #camden #camdemmarket -------------------------------- Free P@lestin3 🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉

Work in p-p-p-progress 🙌🏽 This is unfinished but I felt like posting cause I love how this piece looks 😍✨ #art #queerart #queerartist #illustration #indianart #southasian #nonbinaryartist #nonbinary

✨ Smart, creative, Jewish and genderqueer “Rituals are not only a part of someone’s spiritual or religious identity, but can be foundational to someone’s trans identity too.” In 1999, Micah Bazant self-published TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine. Across 64 pages, it explores Micah’s perspectives on the intersections of trans and Jewish identities. In a week where we’ve looked at the dangers of archives being in the hands of those who seek to oppress the LGBTQIA+ community, this piece is a reminder of how much power we have even with limited resources. 🏳️‍⚧️ Written by philosopher @jamologies and illustrated by @aarancyan , this article was produced as official content for Trans+ History Week - our joint investment in Trans+ creative talent. 🔗 Read it via the @transhistoryweek hub on @wearequeeraf_ via the link in our bios If we don’t understand our past, we can’t fight for our future ✊ We are collaborating with @queerarthub  - an art platform to discover LGBTQIA+ artists, exhibits, and open calls worldwide - to boost the work of our illustrators. #TransHistoryWeek #QueerAF

Thank you to everyone who came through to Pre Drinks for the Revolution back in Feb!!! 💖✨ So much love to all 51 of the Queer & Trans South Asian artists who made this showcase what it was, we’re so grateful to have shared this space with you and your work Held inside the King’s Bedchamber at The Queen’s House, this felt like a real moment of reclaiming space and holding it together. And thank you to everyone who showed up and supported it truly meant everything 🫶🏿🫶🏿🫶🏿 #southasiantart #southasianartist #queersouthasian #queerartists #southasiandesigner

Soooo honored to have had work shown at Queer Frequencies Exhibition curated by the one and only @boldmelloncollective 😍 I showed a new and very personal piece: 'My Mother's Tongue' (2026), as well as 'Ebb and Flow' (2025) 🌸 Andd had the best valentines afternoon with community at a collage workshop 😍 It feels so strange to be doing this work whilst the world is breaking, I sometimes question why. I think I was reminded of the why through this exhibition and when reflecting on queer ancestry, I wrote how 'I feel my Queer ancestors living in the whispers of who I am and through my inner fire, and when I create, I create for all of us'. So I'm sending love, strength and inner fire to everyone right now and know that your queer ancestors and community are always giving you power to continue resisting, continue creating, especially for the ones who can't/never could. We still can 💟 Slide 1-4: 'My Mother's Tongue' Slide 5-6: 'Ebb and Flow' Slide 7: the community collage with everyone's collages put together 🌠 Slide 8: I love this tapestry made by @anomeli__ 😍😍😍 Slide 9: @qxmagazine feature 😍 Other exhibiting artists were: @anomeli__ @mirrorsandspirit @amyroseedlyn @venusraven1 (go check them out cause they are amazing) 🫶🏽 Beautiful photos by the incredible @amyroseedlyn 💜💖 Thank you so much @boldmelloncollective for curating such intimate, community led spaces that hold so many of us 🫶🏽

'My Mother's Tongue' (unfinished, WIP, V1??) Part of a series that I've been weaving since 2022, I've become really bad at talking about my art lol but I still wanna talk about it 😂 This was a spiritual experiment in so many ways, it's about severed ties and all of the layers of how silencing and pain effects entire generations, but also the way it effects us on a personal level, relationships to people, why does silencing travel like that? Alsooo I've gone back to older ways of working, reconnecting with painting, overlaying and scanning and then working over it using photoshop, that's how I'd make art when I was 15/16 🥹 and I feel like there is something special about creating the way a younger version of you did 🫶🏽💜 anyway the world is SCARY and I hate Instagram but here I am lol😭 #art

Join us for a Queer Takeover at Melton Carnegie Museum on Saturday 7th March 😍 @queercoffeelinkups and @aarancyan are coming together to host a creative workshop centred around collage, poetry and collective making that invites LGBTQ+ folks to explore museum objects through a queer, personal and speculative lens. Museums don’t always reflect our stories, especially for those of us with intersectional identities and histories. This workshop is about (re)imagining, (re)inserting and creating new responses to objects, guided by creativity, feeling and imagination 🌑🪩 Using the objects as a starting point, we’ll be using collage and poetry to create alternative interpretations, to contribute to future labels and displays of how queerness shows up. This is a space to explore, to feel and to express 🌠 No prior creative experience or knowledge on museums is needed - this is for all LGBTQ+ folks interested in exploring identity, intuition and interpretation through creativity and feeling 🫶🏽 This is a safe, relaxed and exploratory space, come as you are & take part in whatever way feels right to you 💞 🚌 Free transport is available from Leicester City Centre to and from Melton Carnegie Museum on the day (email [email protected] to book transport by Monday 23rd February) 🎨 All materials + refreshments will be provided 🎟️This event is free, please sign up via Eventbrite to reserve your spot Link in bio to book💜 We can't wait to welcome you 😍 @cultureleics @leicestershire_collections

OPEN CALL!!!! FOR Queer & Trans South Asian Visual Artists We’re inviting submissions for a digital art showcase to be displayed in the King’s Bedchamber at Queen’s House during Pre-Drinks for the Revolution @ Fierce Queens 2026 We are reclaiming a room lined with portraits of monarch men with Queer and Trans South Asian art 💖💖 We welcome any forms of visual art and moving image, all work will be displayed on digital screens, so submissions must be in 2D format. If you work in painting or 3D practices, you’re very welcome to apply - please submit high-resolution photographs/videos of your work as your submission. You can submit finished or experimental work, soft, defiant, personal, political, or wherever your expression takes you! 📩 Submit via the Google Form in our bio ⏰ Deadline to submit: Sunday 8 February, 23:59 (GMT) Reach out to [email protected] if you have any questions We can’t wait to see your work!!! 💖

PRE-DRINKS FOR THE REVOLUTION @ Fierce Queens 2026 A Queer South Asian Gathering & Visual Art Showcase 📍 Queen’s House · King’s Bedchamber 🗓 Friday 27 February · 7 - 11pm This is a space for Queer & Trans South Asian community, art and expression. Think queer mehndi night meets pre-drinks meets your best friend’s living room! Inside the King’s Bedchamber - reclaimed. Throughout the evening there will be making circles, music, space for adornment and getting ready together, for all genders to feel affirmed and celebrated 💖 There will be a digital showcase of Queer South Asian art transforming the room (open call coming soon!) 🖌️🖌️ Come alone or bring your besties, dates or friends Come dressed up - or come and get ready here!! This space centres Queer and Trans South Asian folks, Allies are welcome to attend 💕💕 Please test for covid before attending and we encourage you to wear a mask. Let’s get ready for the revolution <3🔥 🎟 One ticket gives you full access to this event and all performances, workshops and activities taking place across Queen’s House that night - including a full cabaret hosted by @adamall_drag & @applederrieres , a gallery takeover by @boldmelloncollective , Queer History Club, and more. Get your tickets from @Royalmuseumsgreenwich website - the link is in our bio! If cost is a barrier, reach out to us via email at [email protected] 💕💕

Next up in the Queers and Their Pastimes project is Aaran (they/ them) 🌲🌳🌿 "Talking to trees is so grounding, whenever I feel like I need to share in the ancient, unapologetic and deep energy of the earth I'll talk to a tree, connect with its energy and spirit, and always feel so held and nourished." Thanks so much Aaran for wanting to be involved 💖 Do you identify as queer and fancy getting involved in this fun lil community project? 🤩 Drop me a msg 📨 #queersandtheirpastimes #portrait #colourfulart #queerillustrator #trees

Meet @aarancyan ✨⁠ ⁠ Date: Sunday 14 December⁠ Time: 1-7pm⁠ Location: London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, 60-62 Hopton St, SE1 9JH⁠ Entry: Free - no need to book!⁠ ⁠ Aaran is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of visual art, community engagement and social justice. Their work celebrates queer and trans people of colour and envisions radical, speculative futures shaped by QTPOC.⁠ ⁠ They will be selling art prints, badges, stickers, and small zines that bring revolution and joy, exploring themes of identity and collective liberation.⁠ ⁠ [Image description: On a green background reads 'Meet our LGBTQ+ Winter Market sellers' in yellow text. Below is a photo of a collage made by Aaran, depicting a purple figure with blue hair and a surreal scene. Behind the image are black looped lines. The seller's IG is written in the footer in black text.]