This episode, titled “Unearthing Inspiration”, explores 25 years of VCUarts Qatar through Tasmeem Doha from the angles of associate professors Simone Muscolino and Maysaa Almumin. We talk about what metrics of success look like for Tasmeem Doha and the challenges it’s able to take up. Almumin and Muscolino shed light on the fundamental role of the Art Foundation in the city, and share how Tasmeem Doha has impacted their own work and creative processes.
0:00 Introduction
1:06 Your first memory of Tasmeem Doha and/or VCUarts Qatar
16:14 What are your alumni doing now?
20:36 How you approach your work & the impact that VCUarts Qatar & Tasmeem Doha have had on it
32:14 What the Art Foundation does, and how different conferences are approached
44:15 What success looks like for an event like Tasmeem Doha
49:51 The challenges that Tasmeem Doha deals with that the Academy can’t
56:26 – Memories from Tasmeem Doha
Tasmeem Doha is a biennial international conference that focuses on unique and contemporary themes in art and design. For 2024, the theme of the event is “Under Construction”, which is both a metaphor for creative research as well as a celebration and investigation of transformation. It is also a state that Doha has found itself in for decades: a transformation that has presented an outsized impact on the residents of the city.
We’re looking back over 25 years of VCUarts Qatar through Tasmeem Doha – one of the region’s leading and most influential design initiatives – and chatting with six VCUarts Qatar faculty members and key players who have helped make it what it is today.
Under Construction will also explore the past, present and future of VCUarts Qatar’s flagship event Tasmeem Doha. As part of the 25th anniversary of VCUart Qatar’s campus in Doha, the event will bring together voices from the past, present and future of various disciplines involved in this cycle of rethinking and remaking.
Simone Muscolino is an associate professor and the director of the Art Foundation program at VCUarts Qatar. He is a multidisciplinary designer engaged in a research practice concerned with audiovisual culture, and time-based media. Muscolino previously art-directed the video production of several design and architecture firms and worked for both the movie industry and advertising agencies. He co-founded and partnered Interaction Design Lab, a Milan-based company working in the crossover between technology and design.
Maysaa Almumin is an architect and independent filmmaker. She graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and has extensive experience in architectural practice in both London and Kuwait, where she was a partner in Small Architecture Ltd, London; and the Director of THEM Designers in Kuwait. She is a member of the Architects Independent design collective. Before joining VCUarts Qatar she worked at the department of Architecture at Kuwait University. She held a faculty position in the department of Interior Design at VCUarts Qatar, then joined the University’s Art Foundation program, where she teaches Space Research.
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
More about The Tasmeem Doha Podcast
