Set in a space colony on Earth, this new sci-film explores how the future of smart cities relies on the promise of “sustainable” closed systems in the face of health and ecological crises. Two protagonists narrate how the control and exploitation of environmental life cycles and organisms become a blueprint to achieve such futuristic visions.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 10th March 2022 at 9:30 AM  for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.

Disarrayed glimpses of multiple narratives such as that of familial domestic tensions, a juvenile dream of going to Japan, the tendency to smash TVs in moments of anger, and eating fish. While using scenes from the artist’s surroundings and life in Saudi Arabia, like streets or malls, it never attempts to provide the whole picture, but takes a rhizomatic approach to tell a story of everyday life.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 10th March 2022 at 9:30 AM for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.

This film focuses on the ways in which information circulates and, at the same time, involves the subjects of society. Through a complex dynamic of lights that turn on at the same time as the intermittence of the voices of a men’s choir singing an Arabic pop song, the artist proposes a letter that is repeated over and over again: “No, no, don’t leave us, we were always with you / No, no, don’t leave us, even if we weren’t with you “.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 10th March 2022 at 9:30 AM for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.

• 9th March & 10th March 2022, 9 AM – 12 PM
• Room 266
• Upon Registration Only

Merging culture studies, in which anthropology intertwine with artifacts’ social life, with reflections around natural ecosystems: in this masterclass, we will investigate the possibility to think of designed objects as a direct and pure representation of humans’ activities (=endogenous), and/or rooted in specific geographical and cultural contexts (=endemic).

The use of a biological framework is motivated by the idea that a sort of Lex Naturalis (Natural Law), intended here in its secular exception, should drive design towards solutions that create as little friction as possible between the natural environment and its inhabitants. Moreover, we will analyze how adjacent subjects, such as material studies and circular design could play a fundamental role in explaining how endemic and endogenous design is defined and what are its principles and methods.

This masterclass is, in some way, at the crossing between the four Tasmeem axes touching on critical elements such as design utopias, vernacular knowledge, post-colonialism, and new ecologies. After an initial brainstorming and gathering of creative stimuli from the local environment, participants will engage in some physical experimentations chasing endemic and endogenous design opportunities. The final outcomes could result in both still images, videos, or physical representations depending on the nature of the conceptual paths that each participant/group will decide to undertake.

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

• 9th March & 10th March 2022, 9 AM – 12 PM
• Room 101c
• Upon Registration Only 

It is 2022, and the idea of circularity shouldn’t be “radical”. Yet, it is. We continue to promote consumption, at unsustainable levels, with little or no thought to the end-of-life considerations of that consumption. At the core of Circularity lie materials: raw, processed, and waste. For many of us, these are foreign elements – something “out there” and vastly incomprehensible. Using the device of cooking, however, this workshop will treat materials as “ingredients”, and seek to acclimatize participants with the creation of new materials through this familiar act. Drawing on the culinary metaphor – the ephemeral and intoxicating soufflé is the result of four simple ingredients that everyone has in their kitchen at this very moment. The key is in the handling of the materials.

With assistance from Yasmeen Suleiman, Rabab Abdulla, and Abdul Rahman Anwar.

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

9th March 2022, 2 PM – 3 PM
Atrium
Upon Registration Only

Following centuries of colonization, globalization, and never-ending economic extraction we have remade the world from the scale of the cell to the tectonic plate. In the storytelling performance Planet City we go on a science fiction safari through an imaginary city for the entire population of the earth, where 10 billion people surrender the rest of the world to a globally scaled wilderness and the return of stolen lands. Set against the consistent failure of nation-states to act in any meaningful way against climate change, Planet City emerges from a global citizen consensus, a voluntary and multi-generational retreat from our vast network of cities and entangled supply chains into one hyper-dense metropolis.

This event is an in-person event for the VCUarts Qatar community only that will be streamed live. Members of the public are welcome to ask questions in a moderated chat, at the end of each session. Please use the registration button to register and receive a link to your chosen event.

9th March 2022, 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
Atrium
Upon Registration Only

DESIGN EARTH is an architectural research practice that deploys the speculative project to make public the climate crisis.

Founded by Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, DESIGN EARTH is an architectural research practice that deploys the speculative project to make public the climate crisis. They are recipients of the NY Architectural League Prize (2016), ACSA Faculty Design Awards (2014; 2017), Boghossian Foundation Prize (2017), Jacques Rougerie Award, and other honors.

The work of DESIGN EARTH has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including commissioned projects for Bauhaus Museum Dessau (2021), Venice Architecture Biennale (2021; 2018; 2016), Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2017), Oslo Architecture Triennale (2016); as well as in shows at Milano Triennale, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Matadero Madrid; maat Lisbon; Sursock Museum, Beirut, and Times Museum, Guangzhou. Their project “After Oil” was acquired by New York Museum of Modern Art and exhibited in the New MoMA inaugural exhibition entitled “Energy”.

Ghosn and Jazairy are authors of Geographies of Trash (Actar 2015), Geostories: Another Architecture for the Environment (Actar 3rd ed. 2022 [2018]), and The Planet After Geoengineering (2021). Their essays and projects are widely published in professional and scholarly press, including Domus magazine, Journal of Architectural Education, and New Geographies.

Rania Ghosn (Lebanon, b. 1977) is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a Doctor of Design Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design.

El Hadi Jazairy (Algeria, b. 1970) is an Associate Professor and Director of the Urban Design program at the University of Michigan. He holds a Doctor of Design Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design.

This event is an in-person event for the VCUarts Qatar community only that will be streamed live. Members of the public are welcome to ask questions in a moderated chat, at the end of each session. Please use the registration button to register and receive a link to your chosen event.

In this film, al Faraj takes us on a visual and auditory exploration of the cities and people of Saudi Arabia. He shot the video in a documentary format using a video camera and mobile phone. This is an ongoing project, and the artist has been gathering footage for the film since 2015.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 9th March 2022 at 5:30 PM for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.

A rebirthing of neglected land through self-preservation, illustrated by displacing traditional rituals practiced by Shia women preparing for an Islamic marriage into spaces unbound by time or resolution.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 9th March 2022 at 5:30 PM for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.

The artist recalls personal experiences that occurred at the Egyptian Embassy, at Counter #6, the division that handles Palestinian refugees who carry Egyptian travel documents. The artist sets a mood of dream and hope played in irony portraying the endless dilemma of those who struggle with identity and citizenship.

This film is screened as part of the Gulf Metaverse 2.0 program curated by Róisín Tapponi (Assyrian Iraqi-Irish film curator, programmer, writer, and academic)

The screening is taking place in the Atrium on 8th March 2022 at 9:30 AM for the VCUarts Qatar community only. Please use the registration button to register.

Furthermore, this film is streamed via Shashamovies.com.