South Asian Salon is a community-first platform dedicated to transforming the landscape for South Asian creatives. Our primary mission is to connect, uplift, and promote talent from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka by fostering a supportive local and glocal network, as well as showcasing their work to a global audience. We hope to inspire and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration in the expansive fields of Architecture, Craft, Design, Film and Media, Food, Music, Performing Arts, and Visual Arts. Equally important is our commitment to reclaiming erased histories and challenging colonial narratives. By documenting cultural heritage, personal stories, and traditional practices, we seek to build an enduring archive that educates and celebrates South Asia's rich and diverse legacy. This initiative not only fosters cultural pride but also promotes unity, and shared humanity within and beyond the South Asian community globally.
" South Asian Salon is a community first platform dedicated to transforming the landscape for South Asian creatives. "
At South Asian Salon, we bring you exclusive content in our Archive, across unique categories; MEET, CULTURALLY, SPOTLIGHT, RECULTURING, FOOD & MUSICALLY. All our content is meticulously researched, interviewed, excavated, crafted, written and edited by our incredible global team.
Our work extends beyond digital spaces, with in-person workshops and events designed to cultivate creativity, build connections, and empower individuals. These gatherings are designed to foster cross-cultural understanding and professional growth, helping young creatives navigate the industry and develop sustainable careers. It is paramount for us to connect with our community one on one globally!
Our Mentorship program is a one-on-one mentorship program designed for students applying to Art & Design colleges abroad (especially in the US, UK and Europe). The aim is to help students build a compelling, concept-driven portfolio that stands out to admissions boards. Whilst concreting their understanding on what the fields of “art” and “design” mean.
The mentorship is structured to introduce students to college-level critical thinking and making, while allowing them to explore their own voice. Each student receives guidance from a creative practitioner who has not only studied at top-tier institutions but is also currently active in the industry and academia.
The core philosophy of the mentorship is to provide students with direct access to creative professionals working in fields that align with what the students hope to study—bridging the gap between aspiration and experience.
Ever feel like you're missing a space where people just get you—your language, your references, your context? Well, guess what? That’s exactly why we’re here! But hey, don’t just take our word for it—check out why our core team decided to jump on board:
Living and studying in Norway, a relatively homogenous country with few South Asian creatives (or creatives from the global majority in general), I needed to find a community that could help me stay connected to my ancestral roots, while also pushing me to work with graphic design both as a cultural worker and to get a "client" and gig I could only dream of reaching. As someone born in the Diaspora, being part of this community has inspired me deeply, and it's incredibly motivating to see, talk to, and meet other South Asian creatives across the globe. I’m soooooooo excited to see where SAS is headed from here.
South Asian creatives exist all over the world but lack a unifying entity and I believe that South Asian Salon is what we need. In building this platform, we can bring together the fragmented community that we are, and together, celebrate our rich cultural diversity and hidden histories. Built for the people, by the people, South Asian Salon is authentic in its voice and I wanted to contribute to this.
I've also noticed a lack of community among South Asian creatives in London and am passionate about fostering a stronger sense of connection. I envision the South Asian Salon as a space where South Asian creatives can connect, share ideas, and support one another. Additionally, I see it as a resource hub, akin to a library, offering valuable information on initiatives, creatives, and knowledge that can inspire and empower the South Asian creative community.
South Asian Salon is more than a platform; it is a personal mission born from my own journey of rediscovering and reclaiming my South Asian heritage. Growing up in New Delhi, my family’s history was shaped by the trauma of Partition—a legacy of division and loss passed down through generations. My experiences abroad in the U.S. and U.K. highlighted how colonial legacies have fractured South Asian identities, erasing our shared histories and creating barriers between us. South Asian Salon emerged from this realization: that our people, scattered and divided, need a community to reconnect, heal, and reclaim our narratives.
Established in January 2024 but rooted in my earlier work with Broken Englizh, and ‘Active & Concerned Citizen’, South Asian Salon is a platform and a community that has been in the making for many years for me. It started in 2017 with my alias, ‘Active & Concerned Citizen’, which represented a collective of Indian creatives who came together to reject ‘clean’, ‘reductive’ & ‘polite’ graphic design. Instead, we wanted to experiment with ‘boisterous’ colours, an ‘aggressively passive-aggressive’ tone and to point out misconceptions about the ways in which Indians live and thrive, to the West. This approach to creating work and addressing the Western audience came from a place of anger & frustration at being misunderstood and belittled as a nation; but mostly it came from the need to acknowledge the voices and overall equal humanity of a person of colour. In 2019 I began working on Broken Englizh, which is an online blog that publishes and celebrates stories of raw cultural identities, told in non-standard forms of Englizh, as spoken by international residents of the world in order to demystify decolonization through the power of first person narrative. The blog has 150 stories in over 27 languages from individuals all over the world. My journey of building Broken Englizh instilled the powerful and positive impact that smaller stories have to build the dignities of larger countries.
Six years later, South Asian Salon was birthed from the belief of collective liberation, and has taken a celebratory stance of the talent of this very region. As a designer and activist, I felt it was time to dedicate more energy towards building a community, uplifting and connecting people to create larger networks of strength, rather than burning out talking to a world that may not hear my one voice. Through South Asian Salon, I hope to create a voice so loud that it cannot go unheard or unnoticed. As years of colonisation have left us with the legacy of divide-and-conquer, I hope that through this initiative, we are able to reverse this trauma by bringing creatives of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka together in order to celebrate each other as individuals and creatives, as well as collectively reclaim our histories and put forth our perspectives in the world of creativity.
Want to connect? You can catch us on Instagram at @southasian.salon or email us at southasian.salon@gmail.com
Think you’ve got what it takes? Drop us your name, resume, and your “Why Me, Why South Asian Salon” pitch at southasian.salon@gmail.com or slide into our DMs on Instagram at @southasian.salon
At South Asian Salon, we bring you exclusive content in our Archive, across unique categories; MEET, CULTURALLY, SPOTLIGHT, RECULTURING, FOOD & MUSICALLY. All our content is meticulously researched, interviewed, excavated, crafted, written and edited by our incredible global team.
