Emily Carr University of Art + Design is pleased to announce the appointment of Diyan Achjadi as Interim Vice-President Academic + Provost.

Reporting to the President, the VP Academic + Provost is responsible for representing faculty, and holding accountability and oversight for academic programming at the university. Achjadi’s appointment follows an internal search vetted by a committee with faculty representation.

“Diyan brings a full-spectrum skillset and history of accomplishment to this role, and we are lucky to have her,” says Trish Kelly, Interim President + Vice-Chancellor of Emily Carr. “She is a consummate artist with international stature; she is a detailed and eloquent thinker who understands the complexities of cultural production in our current moment; she is a prolific mentor and collaborator; and she is an amazing scholar, academic and educator. Diyan’s vision and acumen will be an extraordinary asset as she works with faculty to help shape the future of academic programming at Emily Carr.”

Achjadi, a queer, Vancouver-based artist working in drawing, printmaking and animation, takes on the role having served as Interim Dean of the Faculty of Culture + Community since 2021.

She says the community has made important progress in recent years on issues including sustainability, equity, anti-racism and governmental relations. Achjadi plans to cultivate collaborative ways to build on this forward momentum and empower the university community to participate more directly.

“There is so much good work already happening at Emily Carr — I’m excited to learn how I can support that work and ensure it advances,” Diyan says. “I’m looking forward to thinking holistically about the curriculum and also how faculty are supported. I’m also excited to work with faculty on understanding how we can further embed community values into those areas to not only shape a better future for the university, but to underscore the vital and urgent relevance of art and design education.”

Achjadi brings extensive experience as an artist, scholar, administrator and educator to her new position.

Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, Achjadi’s formative years were spent moving between multiple educational, political and cultural systems. She received a BFA in 1993 from the Cooper Union in New York, and an MFA in 2002 from Concordia University in Montreal.

Achjadi has been teaching for more than 25 years, including at Cooper Union, Concordia University, the University of Maryland Baltimore Country, and at ECU since 2005. She was promoted to full professorship in the Audain Faculty of Art in 2020.

At ECU, Achjadi has taught throughout the visual arts undergraduate and graduate programs. She has participated in more than a dozen hiring committees, including two as Committee Chair. Her work in the area of Labour Relations includes participation in the Joint Committee on Non-Regular Hiring and as a Faculty Association Member-At-Large.

She has served on numerous governance committees, including Senate, Academic Affairs, Academic Planning + Priorities and the Strategic Enrollment Management Committee. Achjadi has supported Admissions + Recruitment through her work on the Direct Entry Committee, the Faculty Admissions Team, as a presenter or representative at events, and as a portfolio and admissions reviewer.

Achjadi has been actively involved in developing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion policy and practice at ECU, including as part of the University Employment Equity Committee, the Intersectional Working Group and the Advisory Committee for EDI Capacity Building

She has regularly served as mentor both for new faculty and for students through teaching and research assistantships, as a graduate thesis and teaching fellowship supervisor and through teaching and research fellowships.

Additionally, she has served twice as Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Culture + Community.

As an artist, Achjadi has exhibited widely at galleries and film festivals across Canada and beyond. Recent projects include Hush, an animation commissioned by ECU for the City of Vancouver Public Art Program (2021); NonSerie (In Commute), part of How far do you travel?, a year-long exhibition on the exterior of public buses, commissioned by the Contemporary Art Gallery in partnership with Translink BC (2019); and Coming Soon!, a monthly series of prints installed at sites slated for construction and development, commissioned by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program, documented with a book-length publication in 2020.

Recent solo shows include Carried Through the Water at Nanaimo Art Gallery and Burnaby Art Gallery.

Upcoming projects for 2024 include a two-person show with Sara Khan at the ACT Gallery, and a residency in Perth, Australia, as an invited artist for Mobilising Dutch East India Company collections for new global stories, an Australian Research Council Linkage Project.

In 2021, Diyan was a recipient of the VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation.

Read our feature profile about Diyan now via the ECU website.