CEO Qatar Museums Mohammed Saad Al Rumaihi (second right) with other officials and artists at the exhibition.
Doha, Qatar: Tasweer has opened "As the Image Unfolds – The Language of Athar" at Bayt Al Wakra, featuring new photographic works by Mohammed Fakhroo, Ghada Al Mawlawi and Raja Aderdor. Taking its title from the Arabic word athar, meaning traces or imprints, the exhibition runs until December 15, 2026 and marks the culmination of the five-month Tasweer Residency, titled As the Image Unfolds — The Language of Athar.
Director of Tasweer Khalifa Al Obaidly said: “A residency gives an artist something very valuable: time. Over these five months, Mohammed Fakhroo, Ghada Al Mawlawi and Raja Aderdor were able to question their ideas, test different approaches and allow their projects to develop gradually. What audiences see in The Language of Athar is the result of that process, reflecting three distinct ways of thinking about traces, memory and the places around us.” Ghada Al Mawlawi, a Qatari photographer working across still-life and documentary photography, turns to family memory in her work, Portals of Belonging. The project centres on the hospitality rituals of her two grandmothers, using heirloom objects, table settings and everyday gestures of care to consider how love, memory and belonging are carried across generations.
Qatari filmmaker, photographer and writer Mohammed Fakhroo examines consumer culture in For Sale?. Spanning shops, markets, workers, mannequins and staged imagery, the project looks at display, labour and desire, asking what becomes visible when familiar commercial spaces are viewed more closely.
Photographer and visual storyteller Raja Aderdor presents Signs_Seen, Yet Unseen, with photographs taken across Qatar and Morocco. Drawing on handwritten notices, religious phrases, shop signs and other everyday messages, the series explores how public signage can carry traces of identity, faith, humour, labour and belonging.
The residency was based at Bayt Al Wakrah, where the artists developed their projects through research, experimentation and ongoing dialogue. They were mentored by Khalifa Al Obaidly alongside Ghayyan Al Amine and Maria Ovsyannikova, who also curated the exhibition.
Presented as part of the ongoing Qatar Creates 2026-27 season, The Language of Athar joins a wider cultural programme across Qatar spanning visual art, design, photography, heritage and other creative fields.
