Dr Siún Carden is part of the Centre for Island Creativity and the Creative Communities department of Shetland UHI. She teaches on UHI's MA Art and Social Practice and supervises MRes and PhD students in Creative Practice. 

Her current research interests include islands, the anthropology of art and craft, participatory arts-based research, rural creative economies and textile making. Example projects include ‘Home and Belonging’ (2019-2022, Life Changes Trust), a 3-year arts-based project in partnership with Who Cares? Scotland and the #ShetlandCrew of care experienced young people, which used creative writing, film making, verbatim theatre, Minecraft and light projection; ‘The Social and Cultural Capital of Island Communities: Exploring Mechanisms to Inform the UHI Islands 2020 Strategy’ (2022); and ‘Micro-manufacturing and place-based maker cultures: textile production and skill transmission in Shetland and the west of Ireland’ (2028-19, Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant).

Carden won a New Writers Award for poetry from The Scottish Book Trust in 2024. Her poems have been published in Irish Pages, The North, The Interpreters House, Magma, The Tangerine, Northwords Now and The New Shetlander. Her poetry pamphlet Tract was published by The Well Review in 2023.