Doha: Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU-Q), in partnership with the Qatar Foundation and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art invited the public to participate in the biennial international design conference Tasmeem Doha 2013. Tasmeem Doha 2013 – ‘Hybrid Making’ is open to the public and will take place at VCU-Q, Mathaf and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University Student Center from today.
A major focus of the conference will be the exploration of the role art and design is playing in the transformation of Doha — from a small pearl fishing community to a preeminent centre for the arts, popular tourism destination, and home to more than 1.8 million people — all in just a few decades. The conference’s theme will explore hybridity within the acts of making, building and sustaining a contemporary society, engaging with art, design and other interventions that have been conceived, designed or fabricated in Qatar.
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will be hosting the 13 designer-led student laboratories. The Tasmeem Hybrid Making Laboratories are full-scale explorations done through the very act of making. For five days (March 10 to 14), groups of 20 to 25 students and faculty, led by international designers and artists, will design and create full-scale semi-permanent structures (walk-in sculptures), performances or other catalytic interventions. The outcomes of the labs will remain on view at Mathaf through March 31. Visitors to Mathaf will be welcome to walk through the laboratories during the production phase or view the outcomes throughout March.
Lab leaders include interior and product design professor Kristin Bille; award winning wearable artist and eTextile innovator Lynne Bruning; sculpture and extended media professor Corin Hewitt; artists Josh Hoeks and Ryan Rasmussen; urban designers Kelly Hutzell and Rami El Samahy, architect Mary-Lou Arscott and interaction designer Nick Durrant (Carnegie Mellon University); interior design professors Roger Kemp and Anthony Fryatt (RMIT University, Melbourne); interaction designer Ashley John Pigford; photographer and sculptor Steven Pippin; architects and lecturers Sara Shafiei and Ben Cowd; performance art/architecture artist Alex Schweder La; product design professor Sigrur Sigurjnsdَtir; architect and lecturer Jeff Turko; and multidisciplinary designer Simone Muscolino, graphic designer Jordan Gushwa and creative head of communications Jorell Legaspi.
Workshops (March 10 to 14), which take place at VCU-Q, are interdisciplinary, collaborative, charette-style workshops designed to produce viable end products by the conclusion of the workshop. Over five days, groups of 15 comprising faculty and professional artists and designers, will collaborate to synergistically create innovative end products. .
The workshops include Felt Case Study # 1: the Material is the Metaphor is the Material; Doha Borrowed City; Re-claiming the wild colours of Qatari voices; Food Preparation as Interface; Objects as Locus of Hybridity and Hybrid Making: Transhistorical and Transcultural Explorations; Geometric Aljama; Innovative Considerations for Traditional Fashion and Souvenir of the Senses.
The Peninsula
