• Please bring cash.
• No Registration is required.

Following different stories of TCKs from the SWANA (South West Asian/North African) region, Cultural Misfits uses poetry and illustration as a vehicle to portray several kinds of conceptual and pragmatic dilemmas about migration. Through their journey of exploring their unique diasporic influences, empowerment is found in embracing duality.

• 10th March 2022, 3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
• Atrium
• Upon Registration Only

The canonical history of twentieth-century architecture and design in the English language is, like most histories, a constructed and partial view of reality. Yet it has often been perpetuated by its authors as a universal narrative of modernism consisting of a lineup of architects and designers, often Euro-American men, a progression of styles, and a sequence of masterworks. This reductionist view of history expires as soon as it is brought forth, as new information constantly emerges on that which was left out from narratives previously presented as complete.

Merely adding “newly found” architects and designers or their designs in an effort to make the existing narrative “global” without radically rethinking the very structures that underpin this reading of history do not suffice. New critical histories of design are not to replace one hierarchical narrative with another.

This proposed timeline is presented in two formats when launched in the context of Tasmeem Doha 2022. The timeline visualizes a partial history of architecture and design focusing on Latin America and the Arab World enriched by the inclusion of a slew of geographically diverse political and cultural benchmarks from around the rest of the world. It is anchored in the idea that any view of history is always provisional. There is no finite reading nor any claim to a “complete history” here.

In this talk, Mohamed Elshahed, the curator of the project, will present the timeline and discuss the conceptual ideas that produced it.

Mohamed Elshahed will be giving this talk virtually to a live audience. Seats are limited and are only open to VCUarts Qatar or Education city students, faculty, or alumni. In-person attendees must follow VCUarts Qatar guidelines related to COVID-19.

This event will be streamed live. Members of the public are welcome to ask questions in a moderated chat, at the end of each session.

• 9th March & 10th March 2022, 9 AM – 12 PM
• Room 215
• Upon Registration Only

The workshop gathers visual prompts from the Liwan Archival Library for participants to generate new illustrated characters. The aim is to reimagine and create a collection of illustrated characters that are rooted in local and regional picture book publications, as opposed to external trends and styles. The process contributes to local visual culture, which can encompass many applications, including picture books, animation, gaming aesthetics, editorial illustration, surface design, and other illustrative applications. The workshop begins with a mashup of prompts from the Liwan Archive Library. Participants will ignite new combinations and ways of representing faces, characters, and their worlds. The process uses limited colors, focuses on form, and considers key illustration techniques. The second session will evolve the illustrations to completion in digital format.

Participants are required to bring their own laptops with Photoshop or Procreate.

This event is an in-person event for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

• Attendees will be invited to assist in printing, cutting, and collaging the work for the installation.
• This pop-up event will take place in the Saffron Hall, in booth 1.
• No registration is required.

• 9th March 2022, 11 AM – 12 PM
• Atrium
• Upon Registration Only

Part One: Performance

How can we use historical cookbooks for the future? This performance lecture dissects yet combines various elements of historical cookbooks content, aesthetics, and semantics. It comprises an audio-visual aspect, and a reading of various cookbooks and recipes, interjected by commentary and notes. It situates various elements against larger socio-political, economic, class, and gender contexts and poses questions about systems of knowledge, race, colonialism, power dynamics, and identity politics. This way, we learn from the past by playfully examining a genre that is often overlooked.

Part Two: Talk

The talk approaches the topic of cookbooks as a published source material for research that enables an understanding of social, cultural, socio-political, and economic dimensions to the human condition at a given point. Aesthetic elements, design, illustrations, as well as the books’ content and context are put into conversation to understand the various ways food can and did influence the human condition while asking questions about the place and future of cookbooks in today’s digital world.

This event is an in-person event for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.