The initial objective was to create proposals out of food waste to create new materials to replace plastic packaging for food. However, it evolved into a Do-It-Yourself open-source material archive where people could start to experiment with these materials from home, know the simplicity of the process and further pressurize industries to move towards more sustainable solutions “because now the people know”.

Having been part of the MENA Grad Show, I was exposed to all kinds of people, including children and teenagers, which was eye-opening to a new direction for the project. I’ve had professors and teachers who were interested in workshops for their students, and little kids seemed to be intrigued by the video recipes and colorfulness of the project.

This made me open a new potential way for the project, and it is to potentially focus my target audience on schools and families, who could start working together on these materials, experimenting, learning about the potential of waste to replace one use or short-term items etc.

This project aims to educate on the simplicity of up-cycling a daily wasted resource, “food waste” to useful materials that would potentially be adopted by industries to move away from plastic Packaging. The prototype is fully functional and is ready to be launched.

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.

• 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 223
• Upon Registration Only

When does a future independent of carbon models begin? When can we envision a post-petroleum society? At times of planetary urgencies and extraction, the future of a post-petroleum society seems so near, yet far out of reach. The workshop examines the truth behind the so-called political urge to move beyond a petroleum-based society and to take steps closer to a knowledge-based society. The focus of the workshop is to create manifestos that address a radical future inherent in our hands. That is, the workshop extends on the accelerationist concept; a heresy insisting that a radical political response to capitalism is neither to critique, nor to détourne it, but to accelerate and exacerbate its abstractive tendencies. This workshop touches upon a broad range of subject matters including Manifesto Writing, Political and the Aesthetic, Historical Criticism, Affect Theory, and Film Studies.

The workshop is open to all participants interested in the above subject matter and does not require any prior knowledge.

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, 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.

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 meeting point is the main entrance of the VCUQ Building on Wednesday, 9th March at 6:30 PM. From there we will drive to the trapping location outside of gate 3.
• Registration is required.

8th March 2022, 3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
Atrium
Upon Registration Only

In an era of high-tech and climate extremes, we are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. Enter Lo—TEK, a design movement building on indigenous philosophy and vernacular infrastructure to generate sustainable, resilient, nature-based technology.

Designer, activist, academic, and author, Julia is a leading expert on indigenous technologies, as seen in her book Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism, published by Taschen. She teaches at Harvard and Columbia while also leading an experiential, landscape, and urban design studio: Julia Watson with Marie Salembier. After graduating from Harvard with the highest award for her work on conservation and spiritual landscapes, she has been widely published and co-authored the Spiritual Guide to Bali’s UNESCO World Heritage with Dr. J. Stephen Lansing.

Julia approaches design as a “rewilding,” with a portfolio of projects including the Reef Resilience Initiative with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, private estates with the owners of PACE Galleries, and the artist Rashid Johnson. She is a fellow of Summit REALITY & Pop!tech, received a Christensen Fund for her work in conserving Bali’s first UNESCO World Heritage site, and was a Disruptive By Design Ambassador for WIRED. Lo-TEK has featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post and Fast Company. Born in Australia, she regularly travels to sacred sites and indigenous cultures across the globe.

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.

• 7th March & 8th March 2022, 9 AM – 12 PM
• Room 255
• Upon Registration Only

We live in an urbanized world, with profound transformations in the organization of our polities and their spaces of operation. Territorial Agency addresses these changes and the innovative modalities of organizing and managing the relation between polity and space, and it mobilizes architecture and urbanism as the agencies of that relation.

Territorial Agency is an independent organization that innovatively promotes and works for sustainable territorial transformations. Territorial Agency is engaged to strengthen the capacity of local and international communities in comprehensive spatial transformation management. Territorial Agency’s projects channel available spatial resources towards the development of their full potential. Territorial Agency works for the establishment of instruments and methods to ensure higher architectural and urban quality in contemporary territories.

Territorial Agency’s work builds on wide stakeholder networks. It combines analysis, projects, advocacy, and action. The activities of Territorial Agency are grounded in extensive territorial analysis. The focus is on complex representations of the transformations of the physical structures of contemporary inhabited territories. Territorial Agency works on comprehensive projects for the strengthening of regional performance and in the organization of seminars, workshops, exhibitions, and public events as a process of building capacity to innovate.

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