Established with the aim to provide the “creative minds” from different art forms a platform to meet and exchange ideas, the Art Club Qatar is getting stronger and bigger. Having more than 200 members in just over a year of its creation, the club founded by Egyptian expatriate Mohamed Mostafa is attracting more and more artists who “like to think out of the box” and are looking to meet likeminded people.
Together at the club, formed at meetup.com, an online social networking portal, they find either a thought-provoking art exhibition happening in town or an outdoor excursion for the excuse to meet up. And then follows a discussion involving critical appreciation of the event or the artwork.
Their next meeting point is the newly-opened Msheireb Museums on July 30 and Mostafa says more than 60 people have already confirmed their participation.
“I was not expecting this many people frankly. The response has been overwhelming so far. More than 60 people is a big group for a museum visit,” he says, talking to Community on the idea behind the creation of the group and its activities.
The group is for everyone in Doha who has a creative job or has interest in any form of art. “The idea was to gather people from different creative fields at a single platform where we can meet likeminded people and share ideas, plan and participate in activities of mutual interest,” says the founder and organiser of Art Club. He says the initial response to the idea was great and the group is still attracting a large number of people as the membership is expanding. For their activities, members of the group come up with ideas or proposals and then invite others to join in.
The Msheireb trip is going to be one of the biggest trips they have made together at the club. However, Mostafa says they would try to manage the big group. “I think as the museum is newly opened, not many people have seen it so they are really interested in the trip and thus the number of participants is bigger,” he explains.
Msheireb Museums celebrate the history of four historic heritage houses in the heart of Msheireb Downtown Doha. Located within the oldest part of the capital, they form an important part of Qatar’s national history.
They reveal unique aspects of Qatar’s cultural and social development in inspiring to create trusted environments in which the people of Qatar will engage, converse and exchange thoughts about both their past and their future.
The Museums are an integral aspect of the inner city’s regeneration of the old commercial centre with its traditional community-based lifestyle. The restoration of the four heritage houses, Bin Jelmood House, Company House, Mohammed Bin Jassim House and Radwani House, into world-class museums forms a vital part of the Msheireb Downtown Doha development.
In some of their earlier bigger meet up, the members of Art Club have been to “Project Veiling”, a critical discussion around the concept of veiling. The interested members participated in a conversation about what veiling is, and what it does for people.
In one of the excursions to the desert, large number of group members joined to see ‘East-West/West-East’ by renowned artist Richard Serra, a sculpture in the Brouq Nature Reserve near Zekreet that spans over a kilometre and comprises four steel plates, each over fourteen metres in height.
In his marvellous piece of art, Serra examined the topography of the land and beautifully enhanced the vast, desolate space in the heart of the desert to guarantee perfect alignment. Zekreet also hosts the Film City and Mystery Village that are a contemporary recreation of an antique Arabic village nestled behind a canyon in the desert. The evening also featured music by DJ Hashoom.
GROUP PHOTO: Members of the club at Cultural Diversity Festival in Katara.
