By Umer Nangiana

 

How you define cultural values and how you see certain entities as objects of cultural heritage may differ from how others view them. However, there is always a common connection that every member of a particular group, a tribe or a society shares with others experiencing the same association.

Those living in Qatar for the past few years must have inevitably formed this link with the city’s dozens of roundabouts, often viewed as objects of this multi-cultural state’s culture. Recently, they have been disappearing.

How this disappearance affects the sensitive hearts and minds besides how the development provides a case study for the debate on what constitutes cultural inheritance is what Louisa Brandt with her colleague Jawabra AlKindi are set to explore in their first curated exhibition called “Research, Heritage and Art” set to open at HBKU Student Center Art Gallery tomorrow.

Recently graduating from University College London (UCL) Qatar in MA in Museum and Gallery Practice, the two have been managing the gallery for the past year. The exhibition concerns the complex concept of cultural heritage and what constitutes heritage values.

The disappearance of roundabouts in Doha is used as a case study to engage with the topic. “We have curated the exhibition around the research done by UCL MA and MSc students visiting researchers and local artists,” Brandt told Community.

Questions and issues related to cultural heritage are highly contested and debated. What constitutes cultural heritage for one group of people is rejected by another.

Qatar is undergoing rapid economic development with a visibly changing city landscape due to major regeneration projects. The question of what constitutes heritage, what has value, what is worth preserving and what is not, are relevant questions to consider, said the young curator.

“This exhibition engages with the complex concept of heritage value by combining academic research with artistic perspectives and it uses the disappearing roundabouts in Doha and their replacement with traffic lights as a case study,” said Brandt.

The students involved with the UCL Qatar research project use various methodologies such as interviews, questionnaires, archival research and on-site observation to elicit potential heritage values attached to roundabouts in the city.

Researcher Marjorie Kelly has, through her travels in the Gulf, created a photo archive of the disappearing roundabout sculptures found in the region, of which a snapshot is displayed in this exhibition.

“Through a series of artworks, visual artist Urvashi Gaekwad explores the notion of shifting and mutating identities by creating an artistic intervention that superimposes a globalised visual culture on traditional imagery,” said Brandt.

Urvashi is from India. She received her BFA from Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), Baroda in 1996. She also did her Diploma in Printmaking from MSU in 1997 and received the Gujarat Lalit Kala Academy Award in Painting in 1995.

From 2006-2008 she was an Art teacher with DMIS, Doha. Since 2011, she has been working with the Qatar Tennis Federation (QTF) on a project for the Qatar Olympic Museum. She has participated in several workshops and exhibitions in India and Qatar.

“Artist duo Christto & Andrew are inspired by the interplay between the present, the permanent and the temporary. The sculptural installation Permanent Temporalities, questions to what extent technology becomes a factor for the replacement of heritage,” said the curator of the exhibition.

Christto Sanz received a BA from the School of Fine Arts, Puerto Rico before completing his Master in Visual Communication & photography from Elisava, Spain. Andrew Weir holds a BBA from Universtitat Ramon Llull, Spain and is currently completing an MA in Museum & Gallery Practice at University College London’s branch in Qatar.

Together they produce photography, mixed media objects and videos exploring social identities, the media and reinterpretations of history.

The Puerto Rican and South African duo currently resides and works in Doha. Their art has been shown in the Middle East, the United States of America (USA), Central America and Europe.

 

 

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