Qatar Museums (QM) will launch five new exhibitions in the next three months under its “Spring programme,” providing new experiences of art, culture and heritage for residents and visitors.Under the guidance of its chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, QM is opening 555; Qajar Women: Images of Women in 19th Century Iran; Marvellous Creatures: Animal Fables in Islamic Art; Wael Shawky: Cabaret Crusades and Other Stories; and Ismail Azzam: For Them, over the coming weeks. Hamad al-Eida, director of communications at QM, said these artistic and cultural displays, located in a number of venues across Qatar, celebrate a unique sense of heritage while inspiring a future generation of creators. For more than 20 years, QM has been dedicated to supporting Qatar’s artistic flair by creating the conditions for creativity and cultivating new talent. In celebration of this, al-Eida noted that the 555 exhibition will include installations, photographs and videos of what Doha’s inaugural art residences were like from the early 1990s.Opening on March 15 at Doha’s newly renovated Fire Station, the exhibition will introduce visitors to a section of Qatar’s recent history that has never been shared so extensively before. Alongside the opening of 555, QM recently announced that Doha’s Fire Station has been transformed to host a new “artists in residence programme.” The programme fulfills a key part of QM’s commitment to nurturing emerging talent by offering local artists the opportunities to develop best practice and provide a platform for the exchange of ideas.QM also hopes the exhibitions will enable visitors to reconnect with Qatar’s traditional culture and heritage. Marvellous Creatures, which will open on March 4, focuses on the real and mythical animals that appear in the legends, tales and fables of the Islamic world. It features timeless stories such as Shahnameh, Kalila wa Dimna and One Thousand and One Nights. Set to open on March 25, Qajar Women demonstrates the centrality of women in the artistic expression of 19th century Iran and how it continues to inspire contemporary artists. The exhibition, which showcases women at the court and in private, alongside images of female musicians and aristocratic women, explores rarely-told narratives of the Qajar artistic tradition. Al-Eida said Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art at Qatar Foundation will open a major solo exhibition dubbed Wael Shawky: Cabaret Crusades and Other Stories on March 17.Shawky is acclaimed as one of the most powerful and urgent voices to emerge from the Middle East in the last decade. His films, installations and performances explore history, culture and the effect of globalisation on contemporary societies through fact and fiction. The exhibition presents two newly completed film trilogies, each inspired by stories and scripts of literature. Cabaret Crusades (2010-2014) draws on Amin Maalouf’s novel The Crusades through Arab Eyes (1983) while Al Araba Al Madfuna (2012-2015) collages the stories of Mohamed Mustagab with the artists experience living in Upper Egypt.Ismail Azzam: For Them is the fifth exhibition presented by QM under its “Spring programme.” It will be open at the QM’s Gallery at Katara – the Cultural Village on April 25. The exhibition will showcase Azzam’s distinctive portraits of painters and sculptors who have made a significant contribution to Arab Art, with the entire body of work created exclusively for the Doha show.