The Fire Station: Artist in Residence unveiled two exhibitions to mark Qatar Creates week, featuring Qatar-based artists. Titled Picnic ’88 and Curator in Residence 2023, the exhibitions will be on display until 14 May at Gallery 3 and 4 at the Fire Station.
Two exhibitions
Picnic ’88 is an exhibition by Kuwaiti/Qatari artist Anfal Alkandari. It continues the conversation of the inner child theme and parallel universes where Alkandari revisits memories and brings visual elements of the past to the current moment.
It presents a reimagination of a picnic that the artist had in 1988 when she was only six years old. The installation draws on elements evident in her work which reflect on themes of nostalgia and personal experiences with the use of vibrant colours and gestural drawings.
The work presented in the exhibition invites visitors to step into Anfal’s mind and explore her creative process, and how she uses 3D figures and objects to recreate a specific personal memory.
The second exhibition, Curator in Residence 2023 Exhibition highlights the research and process of two residents of the Curator in Residence programme, Ahmad Soliman (Egypt) and Abdulla Al Mutairi (Kuwait).
The programme, which was launched in 2020, allows regional and international curators to apply for a three-month residency at the Fire Station. The Fire Station accepted four curators for 2022-2023, in collaboration with the 2022 Qatar-MENASA Year of Culture programme.
Ahmed’s project, By the Sun and its Radiant Brightness, started during the Curator in Residence programme and are paintings that highlight the diversity of plant species in Qatar. The exhibition also includes an archive of dried plants, part of Soliman’s continuous research and process.
AlMutairi’s project, meanwhile, presents scanned photographs and handwritten documents from the archive of Kuwaiti artist Khalifa Al Qattan’s personal archive. AlMutairi’s research provides a glimpse into the artist’s influence in the Arabian Peninsula during the Modern period. The display will shed light on the art scene in the region from pre-independence to the year 2000.
Diverse talents
According to the Fire Station Director Khalifa Ahmad Al Obaidli, they are thrilled to present two exhibitions that showcase the diverse talent and creative vision of artists from the region.
Anfal Alkandari’s Picnic ’88 is a captivating exploration of memory and imagination, while the Curator in Residence 2023 Exhibition offers a fascinating glimpse into their works.
We invite the public to join us in experiencing these thought-provoking and inspiring exhibitions at Fire Station Artist in Residence.
Anfal Alkandari was a resident at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris as part of the Paris Residency Program of the Fire Station in 2022, a world-class nine-month art residency programme designed to nurture, energise and promote Qatar’s artistic and creative community. Her work has been exhibited at the Fire Station, Almarkhiya Gallery and Ajyal Film Festival.
Ahmad Soliman is a writer, illustrator, designer, and researcher from Egypt, with a background in biological sciences, botany, plant taxonomy, archaeology and Egyptology. He contributed to book publishing, developed visual materials, participated in illustration exhibitions, organised workshops, conducted lectures and received many awards.
Abdullah Al Mutairi is an artist and writer based in Kuwait and is a founding member of the contemporary art collective GCC. His writing has been featured in publications such as the Journal of Arabian Studies and ArtAsiaPacific, and his work has been exhibited at the Sharjah Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany.
Entry to the exhibitions is FREE for residents of Qatar and any GCC countries. The Garage Gallery at the Fire Station is open Saturday to Thursday, from 9 am to 7 pm, and on Friday, from 1:30 pm to 7 pm.
For more details and for ticket information, visit firestation.org.qa.
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