Darian Razdar

Darian Razdar is a writer, artist, and independent scholar. His work ties together poetics, landscape, and abstraction through the methods of poetry, photography, publication, art-writing, and collaboration.

Darian is an actively publishing poet and photographer. His titles include: Morning Poems (San Press, 2023); Eye of Water (self-published, 2023); and Counter-Map: A Poetics of Place (Reflex Urbanism, 2022). His critical and poetic writing can also be found in Peripheral Review; C Mag; Vallum: Contemporary Poetry; The Blasted Tree; PM Press; Pleasure Dome; The Asian Canadian Living Archive; Upping the Anti; QT Literary; Hearth Garage; Toronto Star; Progressive City; and Metropolitics.

Darian experiments with creative methods of learning with place via embodied field research. Darian’s field work for Locating Belleville (2018) inspired his Community Power Mapping workshop series (2017-2022), which he facilitated for over 300 participants in 4 countries. Critically re-thinking the project, Darian created Poetics of Place (2022-present), a workshop-research-publishing project that challenges conventional notions of what maps are and how they do. A Landscape Hosts Something is a new workshop designed to rethink landscape as a site of critical artistic practice and play.

Darian holds a BA in Social Theory & Practice and French & Francophone Studies from University of Michigan and an MSc in Urban Planning from University of Toronto. With roots in the Great Lakes and Caspian Sea basins, his practice is currently based in Toronto and Mexico City.

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