VCUQatar to Organize Tasmeem Doha 2013

Doha, March 09 (QNA) - Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, in partnership with the Qatar Foundation and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will hold its biennial international design conference Tasmeem Doha 2013. Tasmeem Doha 2013 'Hybrid Making' is open to the public and will take place at VCUQatar, Mathaf and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University Student Center from 10 to 17 March, 2013. A major component of the Conference will be the exploration of the role art and design is playing in the transformation of Doha, Qatar from a small pearl fishing community to a preeminent center for the arts, popular tourism destination, and home to more than 1.8 million all in just a few decades. The Conference's theme of "hybrid making" 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. A significant partner of Tasmeem Doha 2013 is Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art who 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 made up of 20-25 students and faculty, led by invited 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 the month of March. The Tasmeem Hybrid-Making Workshops (March 10 to 14) which take place at VCUQatar, are interdisciplinary, collaborative, charette-style workshops designed to produce viable end products by the conclusion of the workshop. Over five days, groups of 15 team members comprising faculty and professional artists and designers, will collaborate to synergistically create innovative end products. These products, or 'makings', may be in the form of academic papers, videos, full scale semi-permanent structures, performances or any other form determined by the workshop leaders and/or participants. The workshops include Felt Case Study # 1: the Material is the Metaphor is the Material; Doha Borrowed City; Re-claiming the wild colors of Qatari voices; Food Preparation as Interface; Objects as Locus of Hybridity and Hybrid Making: Transhistorical and Transcultural Explorations; Geometric Aljamia; Innovative Considerations for Traditional Fashion; Souvenir of the Senses; "Illusions": A Cross-Disciplinary Project for Dance, Music and Multimedia Design; VJ'ing the Narrative and Five Days with Five Senses. All of these activities are summarized and framed by the two-day symposium at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University's Student Center on 16 and 17 March. Tasmeem Doha 2013 'Hybrid Making' will include a series of exhibitions and presentations by artists, designers and architects who have realized projects in the country, or have led workshops and labs during the active phase of Tasmeem Doha 2013. (QNA)