[Digital Poetics 4.18] Antidepressants by Aliaskar Abarkas

“Ms.1889 c.86”, Portuguese Designer (?) from [Album of drawings, illustrating habits and customs of the peoples of Asia and Africa with short statements in Portuguese] (source)

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Aliaskar Abarkas is an artist and writer currently based at Sadler's Wells London as a fellow of The Rose Choreographic School. Committed to alternative and communal art education, he employs a choreographic and sonic approach to facilitate the dynamic interplay between individuals, guiding a transition from isolated experiences to collective expressions. Through strategic engagement with institutional infrastructures, he proposes and tests methodologies that reimagine the open contexts within which his practice evolves and circulates, resulting in contingent shifts in the dimensions of ideas and material forms. In projects like The Whistling Choir, Aliaskar collaborates with diverse creative networks and participants, documenting the process leading to musical compositions, visuals, and performances.

Aliaskar is a recipient of the Castro International Fellowship Award in Rome (2024). He was an associate artist at Open School East (UK), the Institute of Postnatural Studies (Spain), Rupert (Lithuania), and Syllabus V (UK). Aliaskar holds a BFA and MA in Fine Arts and Theory of Art from the University of Tehran and Goldsmiths University of London. Additionally, he has contributed to various programmes and institutions, including LUX Critical Forum, The Sonic and Somatic Transdisciplinary Research and Practice Programme, Advanced Practices, The Centre for Arts Design & Social Research, The New Centre for Research & Practice, and the Barbican Centre's Communities and Neighbourhoods.