Sanzari Aranyak

Communications Associate | They/Them

Sanzari Aranyak is a Disabled, Trans, South Asian, and Southern artist living in Durham, North Carolina.

Their work focuses on disrupting urgency culture and embracing the vulnerability of living as a Disabled person, in its messiness and through interdependence. They facilitate workshops on rethinking our relationship with burnout, care, and productivity using Disability Justice frameworks. As an artist, they make tiger balm candles and prints that remind you to rest and spend time outside.

They attended Davidson College, where they majored in Gender and Sexuality Studies and organized on- and off-campus. They were a Co-Founder and Core Organizer of the Davidson Community Fund, a wealth redistribution network based in Davidson College and Charlotte, NC. They were also a Co-Founder and Core Organizer of the Asian American Initiative, focused on bringing Asian American Studies to Davidson College. They also co-created a political education series in 2020, where they brought together activists and alumni to talk about the legacy of student activism at Davidson and how to create sustainable activist spaces on campus. They were an intern at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, where they studied under Disability Justice and Asian American Literature scholars and learned about burnout, disability, and sustainable activism in 2020 and 2021, culminating in their Senior Honors Thesis, "Rest as the Heart of Resistance."

They were an Advisory Board Member for 2025–26 for Get Embodied Soul Movement, a leadership and wellness incubator for those of us that are fat, BIPOC, and/or Disabled artists, healers, and organizers/activists. They also worked as the Communications Coordinator for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, building out communications infrastructure in environmental justice organizing spaces.

You can currently find them reading, spending time with friends, or soaking up the sun outside.