Born in Jakarta, Indonesia to a West-Javanese father and an English-Canadian mother, Achjadi grew up moving between Jakarta, Hong Kong, London, and Washington DC. Her formative years were spent negotiating different educational, political, and cultural systems, leading to an ongoing interest in how our understanding of ideologies is influenced and informed by the visual popular culture that surrounds us. Achjadi currently resides in Vancouver, BC where she is an Associate Professor of Print Media at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.