By Fazeena Saleem
DOHA: A diverse collection of art, photography, design and architecture is on display as a celebration of Qatar Museums’ (QM) ‘The Fire Station: Artist in Residence’ initiative.
H E Sheikha AI Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa AI Thani, Chairperson, QM, opened the programme’s first exhibition on Thursday.
The exhibition celebrates accomplishments of the first group of 18 artists in residence, 10 of whom are Qatari. It showcases selected works from each artist during their nine- month residency. It is open to the public until November-end at the Garage Gallery of old Fire Station in Doha.
Qatar artist Aisha Al Sowaidi’s work is related with the slippage and distortion of time and memory, particularly those established during childhood. She displays a majlis, door handles and bricks.
Her work ‘Remembrance of Majlis’ is a wheel-like interpretation of the majlis setting she experienced on a daily basis during childhood.
“Here, I recall my remembrance of the majlis and loneliness as a child among adults,” said Al Sowaidi during a press preview of the exhibition.
“I have also lots of remembrance from childhood related to door handles as that’s what let you go out and play,” she added.
Another Qatari artist, Roudha Ibrahim AI Nasser, works across painting, photography, sculpture and installation. Al Nasser presents three new paintings and sculptures that observe and exaggerate our changing attitudes towards cultural history and tangible, global identities.
Photographers Christo Sanz from Puerto Rico and Andrew Weir from South Africa are experimenting with exaggerated representations of objects, the self and collective society.
During their residency, they created photographic installations, which challenge the idea of the digital image as a photograph and explore the boundaries of this form.
Khalifa AI Obaidli, Director, Fire Station, said, “I am immensely proud to witness the incredible achievements of every talented artist, presented beautifully in this end-of-residency exhibition.
“Each artist has pushed the boundaries of innovation and creativity to raise the bar in contemporary art in the region and the exhibition highlights how much our art community is flourishing. To see Qatar and its interest in artists grow is a great thing for the next generation of artistic talent in our country.”
The programme, started in September 2015 and will welcome the next batch of 18 creatives in September. The Doha Fire Station was built in 1982 as a Civil Defence building, and had been occupied by the fire brigade until late 2012. It was handed over to QM to renovate and turn it into the home of the artists in residence.
The Peninsula
