ZHK Designs is an Instagram account that helps empower the South Asian community and educate people on the various South Asian cultures and topics. The content featured on the account brings awareness to many different aspects of being South Asian, in particular, Indian, Pakistan, and/or Bangladeshi. The platform is home to many digital art series. Among them, the currently ongoing and/or newly announced ones are “Stellar South Asians”, “What Would Poo Do?”, “Taste of South Asian Culture”, the second volume of “Desi Girl Horrors”, and a series centered on music featuring the works of artists including Tesherr, Margib, TWINBEATZ, DJ Hecktic, and DJ Suraj. These series shine a spotlight on South Asian artists, give advice to those who have experienced situations similar to the ones mentioned in the posts, and help others learn more about the cultures of South Asia. ZHK Designs has also announced on July 4 their popup with Market Collective which will be taking place until the end of July at the St. Louis hotel in East Village, Calgary, Alberta, Canada every weekend where they will be selling prints, stickers, and more. ZHK Designs is home to the original creations of Zoe Harveen Kaur, the owner of the platform, a digital artist for the Instagram account Asian Woman Festival, and contributor to the Instagram account Brown Girl Memes. Via email, I was able to contact Ms. Kaur about ZHK Designs and her goals for the platform.
Ms. Kaur is hoping to foster a safe space for all South Asians where they feel represented in media and raise awareness on South Asian issues, topics and prominent aspects of various cultures. She hopes to achieve this by creating art that represents the South Asian community and uplifts voices. ZHK Designs is doing just that as its digital art on the account makes sure to highlight South Asia and South Asian artists in many ways.
When asked about what inspired Ms. Kaur to start this platform, she said,
I started illustrating on my iPad about 2 years ago, and I showed my mum one of my pieces. She was absolutely thrilled to see it and it was actually my mum and my sister who suggested that I share my work on Instagram and start selling my pieces! Ever since then, I have been designing and sharing my work.
Ms. Kaur took to Instagram to first share her work on May 1, 2018. Since then, the account has made 361 more posts highlighting the desi culture. ZHK Designs is continuing to grow at extraordinary rates causing more people to learn more about the South Asian community making us thankful to Ms. Kaur for starting this account and her mother and sister for encouraging her.
Ms. Kaur believes it is extremely important for accounts such as hers to exist so that the South Asian community is celebrated in the most positive way possible. She stated that the South Asian community is full of rich cultures, traditions and backgrounds which need to be shown. She went on to say,
Not only is it important to share who we are and learn about various cultures, but it is also important to break negative stigmas regarding our community and dismantle traditional barriers that have been put in place. I feel as though my page, along with many others, celebrate our community, they also question and break down some of the negative aspects that have been carried through generations and are brought into our community.
As Ms. Kaur said, it is essential that we share the positive and negative aspects of the South Asian community instead of only focusing on the positives and pretending there is no room to improve as a community. In fact, many have fallen in love with ZHK Designs due to how Ms. Kaur uses her digital art to convey this.
When asked if she had anything else to share, she said that she hopes people feel respected, represented, and loved on ZHK Designs’ page.
ZHK Designs’ goal is to inspire and empower the South Asian community through art. The account has posts of a diverse variety in hopes to help South Asians feel expressed. The account is doing just that and has caused an impact on many people. I strongly encourage you to check out their Instagram account, @zhkdesigns, and consider buying their products which include prints and stickers at https://www.zhkdesigns.com/.