Aaiún Nin

Aaiún Nin is an Angolan poet, mixed media artist and activist. Through their work, they explore and confront issues of race, gender and sexual discrimination, as well as LGBT+ experience. 

Nin’s poetry draws upon the experience of childhood and youth spent in a patriarchal society and is strongly rooted in the context of postcolonial Africa. In their poems, they often refers to the present situation in Angola, addressing problems of sexual violence inflicted on women, religious fundamentalism and the contradictions of Catholic doctrine, social inequalities and racism. Since moving to Denmark in 2016, Nin has worked in collaboration with artists identifying with queer culture and has been an outspoken voice regarding the legal discrimination of immigrants and police violence in Scandinavian countries. Their articles and poems have been published in Friktion Magasin, Kritiker, and Klimaaksjonen (Norwiegian Writers’ Climate Campaign – NWCC). Nin has performed their poetry at numerous literary festivals, such as the Sound + Literature in Aarhus and the Oslo International Poetry Festival.

As the legislation criminalizing same-sex relations in Angola was overturned, the Refugee Board in Denmark decided to deny asylum for  Nin in 2020 on the grounds that the artist did not risk persecution. Organizations like Freemuse voiced their opposition to the decision by Danish government that disregarded the fact that Nin’s work openly explores homosexual experience and that homophobic attacks and hate crimes in Angola are very much ongoing.

In March 2021, Nin was welcomed as the 9th ICORN resident hosted by Villa Decius in Krakow. During their residency in Krakow, Nin published their second poetry collection, titled Broken Halves of a Milky Sun (2022). Aaiún Nin is the current ICORN resident in Bern, Switzerland for the period between 2023 and 2025.