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The Gallery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQatar) will present from Wednesday “Lines in the Sand”, an interactive project linking Qatar’s past and present. The opening reception at 6pm is open to the public. |
The exhibition, running until April 14, brings together realms that seem at first to be mutually exclusive – the historical and the contemporary; the real and the virtual; the tangible and the intangible.
The collaborative project involving VCUQatar, University of Wales and the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) unearths Qatar’s rich and complex history through interactive media designed to create new and alternate frameworks through which one may view, use and engage with the past. The exhibition is curated by Caitlin Doherty.
Projects were created and directed by Diane Derr who worked with Law Alsobrook, Leslie Forehand, Mirza Baig, Al Hussein Wanas, Zoe Donald, Hassan Wanas and Dr Andrew Petersen.
The exhibition is funded by a VCUQatar Faculty Research Grant and builds upon the National Priorities Research Programme (NPRP)-funded project, “Visualising Qatar’s Past”.
It was in 2011 that VCUQatar, University of Wales and the QMA began collaboratively working on the project. The principle aim has been to expand the visual recording of Qatar’s diverse cultural heritage in the documentation and preservation of a publicly accessible record, through new methods of recording and analysis based on the use of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) photography and video.
Building upon their collaborative research at the Al Ruwayda archaeological site, “Lines in the Sand” moves archaeology into the contemporary gallery and thus enables new and dynamic interactions, insights and juxtapositions. This, in turn, provides critical understanding of Qatar’s past and encourages individual narratives to be constructed.
For details, visit www.qatar.vcu.edu or e-mail VCUQatar exhibitions and speaker curator Caitlin Doherty at [email protected]
