Qatar Museums launches new Fire Station building

Qatar Museums chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at  the official launch of the new Fire Station building and Artists in Residence programme yesterday. The ceremony was attended by HE the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari and Qatar Museums vice chairperson HE Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed al-Thani. RIGHT: The new Fire Station building.

Qatar Museums (QM), under the guidance of its chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, officially launched yesterday the new Fire Station building and Artists in Residence programme as well as the inaugural “555” exhibition.Since 2012, Qatar Museums’ team has been working on renovating the old Civil Defence Building ( the old Fire Station) in preparation for hosting the new Artist in Residence programme. HE Sheikha Al Mayassa said that arts, creativity and heritage played a vital role in Qatar’s development, supporting the pillars of its national vision. “Today’s opening of the Fire Station marks an important milestone towards this, highlighting just how much the art community is flourishing as well as providing the ideal support to the next generation of cultural producers,” she said. The Artist in Residence programme,  scheduled to begin in September, will span a period of nine months and initially include 20 artists from a range of disciplines, including art, photography, design and architecture. The residency programme will first be open to Qatari artists and residents and later to regional artists. Commenting on the launch, Hala al-Khalifa, director of the Fire Station, said: “It’s a great pleasure to witness the opening of the new Fire Station building. This building has served the community very well in the past 30 years and will now continue to do so in a different context. Through this residency programme, we hope to nurture and support a vibrant local art scene and give young and emerging artists a shared space to experiment, create, grow and flourish.”Parallel to the launch of the Fire Station, the “555” exhibition was launched in homage to the Art Centre, the first artist in residence initiative that took place in Doha in the early 1990s and which ran for a decade. Curated by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali al-Thani, the “555” exhibition aims to showcase a pivotal era in the development of arts not only in Qatar, but the region as a whole. Equipped to host the 20 artists selected to join the Fire Station, the building is home to 24 studios and a gallery space for exhibitions and community interaction. Twenty studios will be open to those artists selected to join the residency, while four will be reserved for visiting artists. The Fire Station premises will also feature public attractions such as a park, a library, an arts and crafts shop, a cinema, plaza and restaurant to foster an interactive environment and engage the local community.The residency programme will also offer the 20 artists weekly mentoring sessions and access to QM museums, special exhibitions, lectures as well as to QM’s experienced museum curators.More than 150 applications have been received till date.The Doha Fire Station was built in 1982 as a Civil Defence building. It was occupied by the fire brigade until late 2012 when the building was handed over to Qatar Museums for preservation and conservation and to sensitively recycle elements of the original architecture.