Following the end of our 2024 exhibitions, and ahead of further programming including a solo project by Nicola Singh in 2025, the Cubitt Fellowship programme is entering a ‘fallow’ period - a term used to describe a period of rest, repair, and restoration in farming practices. As our Curatorial Fellow prepares for the next period in 2025 as well as reflecting on the preceding programme across 2023 and 2024, our gallery space will be used in a number of different ways.

Event: All The Whistlers: Listening Session | Thursday 21 November 2024, 7-8pm

NEW: 'SCORING CONVIVIALITY' TEXT BY ADRIANA GALLO

'WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND' TEXT BY BRIAN DILLON

INTERVIEW WITH ALIASKAR ABARKAS
Click the link above to read a new interview between Aliaskar Abarkas and Cubitt Curatorial Fellow Seán Elder, which took place at Cubitt in December 2024. The conversation moves between alternative pedagogy, contemporary art practice, and sonic thinking.

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As part of this period, artist Aliaskar Abarkas will be resident in the gallery from November 2024 to February 2025. Aliaskar’s practice sits at the intersection of alternative pedagogy, expanded choreography, and a strong focus on sound. Throughout the residency, they will serve as a mediator between Cubitt and Aliaskarr’s existing creative and affective communities, exploring ways to expand collaboration and bring people together for collective work. Drawing on the concept of "aphomenia," a term Aliaskar frequently uses to describe his methodology, they envision this period of time at Cubitt Gallery as a game board, designing a mechanism for a series of activities, interactions, exchanges, and strategies that respond to institutional policies.

Since the beginning of their fellowship programme ‘Feeling Still in a World Which Runs’, current Curatorial Fellow Seán Elder has tried to accommodate and support artists and workers with the modest resources Cubitt has in terms of space and time and this period is an extension of this. Other activities unrelated to Abarkas’ residency are also able to take place but will work around and through this ongoing research.

During their residency, Aliaskar is also inviting artists, students, curators, as well as those without access to formal education structures to take part in in-person conversations. These sessions may take the form of a studio visit, mentoring or guidance from Aliaskar on navigating a developing arts practice, or simply an informal conversation in the context of the residency.

To book an appointment, please contact: [email protected].

For more information about upcoming events during this residency, please follow our newsletter and social media.

Aliaskar Abarkas is a London-based artist. Committed to alternative and communal art education, he employs a choreographic and sonic approach to facilitate dynamic interactions between individuals, guiding a transition from isolated experiences to collective expressions. Engaging closely with institutional infrastructures, Aliaskar proposes and tests methodologies that reimagine open contexts within which his practice evolves and circulates, leading to contingent shifts in the dimensions of ideas and material forms. In the project All The Whistlers, Aliaskar collaborates with diverse creative networks and participants, documenting the process that leads to musical compositions, visuals, and performances.

Aliaskar holds a fellowship at Sadler’s Wells/Rose Choreographic School (London, 2024-26). He is a resident artist at RTM.FM with a monthly radio show: 

"On Alternative Education." He was an associate artist at Castro (Italy), 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 and Politics from the University of Tehran and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Photo: The Mosaic Rooms, Aliaskar Abarkas, Hannah Catherine Jones, 2024, Photo by Siegrun Salmanian

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 Researc and The New Centre for Research & Practice. Most recently, his projects, performances, and other interventions have been supported and presented at, The Barbican Centre, ICA, The Mosaic Rooms, TACO!, Swiss Church (London), CAPC (Bordeaux), and LOCALES (Rome).