Art and Artists

This collection of artworks was curated by Georgetown University in Qatar for its “Global Energy Cultures” Hiwaraat forum on December 9-10, 2023. The forum delves into the nuanced exploration of energy through the lenses of humanities and social sciences. Energy is not just about geopolitics, economics, or even science. Energy is part of our identities. It helps us know and make sense of the world. It is part of the relationships that hold us together and the conflicts that drive us apart. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the forum illuminates the intricate relationships between energy and the fabric of society, delving into the narratives, values, and ethical considerations that underpin our everyday interactions with energy. The academic panel discussions together with our collection of artworks, musical compositions, films, and art practices center the cultural lives of energy, inviting us to see and think in new ways about our energy pasts, presents, and futures.

For Those Who Slept in the Dark with Identifiable Ghosts

Victor Ehikhamenor, GUQ Artist-in-Residence (Charcoal, graphite, acrylic on tent canvas, 2023)

Synopsis: In our effort to offer both academic and artistic perspectives related to energy, GUQ offered its first artist-in-residence position to Victor Ehikhamenor, a Nigerian-American multidisciplinary visual artist and writer known for his vibrant and incisive works that engage with energy humanities and postcolonial politics. This is an innovative appointment driven by our commitment to foster meaningful connections between art and the humanities–whether in the curriculum, in research, or in practice–and to create opportunities for our community to engage with art on a daily basis. Over a two-week period, Ehikhamenor created the original artwork For Those Who Slept in the Dark with Identifiable Ghosts for exhibition at GUQ’s “Global Energy Cultures” forum in Msheireb Museums.

Original Artwork: This artwork is composed of charcoal, graphite, and acrylic on tent canvas, and engages with sustainable materials to provide commentary on the fragility of the current ecosystem. Ehikhamenor’s work advocates for a balanced ecological approach to energy production and consumption, and takes into consideration engagement with the GUQ community, students and faculty, and Msheireb Museums curators.

Exhibition Space: The Company House foyer, Msheireb Museums.

Planetary Bands, Warming World

Daniel Crawford, Research Scientist, University of Alaska – Anchorage (music composed in 2015, updated 2023, using scientific data)

Synopsis: Planetary Bands, Warming World was composed using scientific data from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis, GISSTEMP v4). This is a composition for string quartet in which the notes played by each instrument directly correspond to the annual temperatures of 4 discrete “bands” of the Northern Hemisphere dating back to 1880 C.E. The pitches played by the violins represent the northernmost regions of our planet, while the viola and cello respectively “perform” the temperatures of regions closer to the equator. Scientists have been sounding the alarm about the climate crisis for decades, yet the skepticism that remains in the public and among policymakers suggests that new avenues of communication are needed. Climate scientists have typically relied on maps, graphs, and raw numbers to reach the public, so here we present a “sonification” of the global temperature series to present the scope, geography, and urgency of climate change in a different way: through music! We often think of the sciences and the arts as completely separate—almost like opposites—but using music to share these data is just as scientifically valid as plotting lines on a graph. Listening to the violin climb almost the entire range of the instrument is incredibly effective at illustrating the magnitude of change—particularly in the Arctic which has warmed more than any other part of the planet.

Musicians: Doha String Quartet, Members of Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra:

Lorena Manescu (violin)
Dimitri Torchinsky (violin)
Andrea Mereuta (viola)
Christoph Schmitz (cello)

The Music Program:

“Planetary Bands, Warming World” Daniel Crawford
“Gute Nacht” from Winterreise by Franz Schubert
“The Storm” from “Summer” by Antonio Vivaldi

Performance Details: Sunday, December 10, 2023, 4:45pm-6:00pm, open courtyard, Mohammed bin Jassem House, Msheireb Museums.

I Can Only See Shadows

Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter (3-channel video, 20:19 min looping, 2016)

Synopsis: This three-channel video is set in a troposphere awash in the byproducts of drilling, digging, fracking, cracking, and burning carbon-based fuels. Clouds of dusty molecules increasingly fill the air, irritating the nose and clogging particle filters: material records of energy histories. Weaving together narratives provided by artists, anthropologists, researchers in the “energy humanities,” and environmental activists, the video projects a parallel world where liquid fossil fuels have been replaced by a new, dominant global energy source: untethered carbon particulate, which doubles as a medium for communication. The sparsely populated world, slowed by the sleepily violent interference of dust, envisions new forms of neoliberal labor where tiny particles are captured, scrutinized, and collected as data. Amidst such an atmosphere, what new modes of resistance and interference might become possible or necessary?

I Can Only See Shadows was originally commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (US) for the exhibition Petcoke: Tracking Dirty Energy (2016) and was produced with contributions by ︎alejandro t. acierto, ︎Jacquelene Drinkall, ︎Liz Ensz, Cameron Hu, Adam Mansour, Juan Luis Olvera, Patrick Quilao, ︎Smart Air (Beijing, CN), and the Southeast Environmental Task Force (Chicago, US).

Exhibition Space: Lower Gallery, Bin Jelmood House, Msheireb Museums.

Dark Fiber

Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter (single-channel site adapted video installation, 10:15 min looping, 2014–2023)

Synopsis: The node-link diagram, a mathematical abstraction that is now shorthand for the complexity of networked society, can obscure more than it reveals. Frame-by-frame, Dark Fiber draws a different approach to network representation, suggesting that one might instead follow a single line: one that hops between systems and scales, through vast landscapes, industrial infrastructure, media apparatuses, walls and conduits, lived space, and imagined worlds. Histories of property, white settlement, fronterism, innovation, and technologies of “progress,” trace, and are traced by, this line. The result is not an understanding delivered whole, but a subjective experience, one afforded by walking a path. The video is site-adapted (the ending reshot) for each exhibition of the work.

Exhibition Space: Porta Cabin, open courtyard, Company House, Msheireb Museums.

The Search for Power

Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu Rish, Installation (2018)

Synopsis: Aligning with Msheireb’s “Kahraba street” and Doha’s histories of electricity, Tania El Khoury, an artist, and Ziad Abu Rish, a historian, created this experiential exhibition about the history of power outages in Lebanon, delving into the intersection between public utilities infrastructure, people’s relationship to the state, and various popular mobilizations to shape both. The Search for Power is a sound installation of a lecture performance featuring the artist, the historian, and the audience.

On a night with a sudden electricity outage in their Beirut neighbourhood, the artist and her historian husband discussed the history of power cuts in Lebanon. Born during the Lebanese Civil War, the artist had grown up with the understanding that the problem with electricity in Lebanon began during the war. The historian, however, recalled finding a government document dated 1952 that announced scheduled electricity outages across Beirut. The two decided to research the history of power outages in Lebanon, delving into the intersection between public utilities infrastructure, people’s relationship to the state, and various popular mobilizations to shape both. In time, they reach as far back as the introduction of electricity in Beirut before it was even possible to imagine a Lebanese state. In space, they collect documents across Lebanon and beyond its borders, visiting the archives of colonial powers: Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. What they find is a transnational story that locates electricity at the intersection of colonial legacies, the machinations of political and economic elites, and everyday acts of resistance, survival, and sabotage.

Exhibition Space: Company House Annex, Msheireb Museums.

Self-Guided Experience: The exhibition is open all day for a self-guided experience.
Guided Experience: For the guided group experience on Saturday, December 9th at 5:15-5:45pm, sign up at registration desks.

Civil Works: Eight Projects for the Gulf

Civil Architecture, Hamed Bukhamseen & Ali Karimi (architectural drawings and photographs, 2023).

This architecture exhibition aligns with Msheireb’s emphasis on knitting together Qatar’s heritage with its future through the creation of distinctive architectural and cultural spaces. Civil Architecture is a cultural practice preoccupied with the making of buildings and books about them. The work of Civil asks what it means to produce architecture in a decidedly un-civil time, presenting a new civic character for a global condition. Since its founding by Hamed Bukhamseen and Ali Karimi, the practice has attracted a strong following for their provocative works and their offer of an alternate future for a nascent Middle East. The exhibition in Msheireb Museums showcases eight recent projects by the practice that engage with issues related to ecology, extraction, and the landscapes of the Gulf. These projects are also discussed at length in a moderated talk held as part of the Georgetown University in Qatar’s “Global Energy Cultures Forum.”

Exhibition Space: Temporary Exhibition Space, Mohammed bin Jassim House, Msheireb Museums.

Energy on Screen: Short Film Program

Finding Oum Al Ghaith (Documentary, 36 mins, 2023, Jordan) by Bassam Alasad and Abeer Bayazidi. Three women in a drought land before winter solace, contrasting ancient rainmaking rituals and echoing it at the same time while leading their community to save and restore water resources.
Berta Didn’t Die, She Multiplied (10 min, 2017, USA) by Sam Vinal. In Honduras, the most dangerous country in the world to be a land defender, Berta Cáceres’ death has not silenced the many camps fighting for justice and Indigenous Sovereignty. They mourn Berta’s assassination with powerful chants of “Berta Didn’t Die, She Multiplied!”
Canary (Animation, 12 mins, 2022, Canada) by Pierre-Hugues Dallaire and Benoit Therriault. Canary birds are highly sensitive to their environments, often used in mining as an indicator to see if the air was safe to breathe. Young Sonny doesn’t like mining much, and he trains his pet canary to play dead so they can take the day off. A prank that leads to unintentional disaster.
Now You See Us, Now You Don’t (12 mins, 2021, India) by Lakshmi Sharma and Megha Acharya. This documentary examines how factors like gender, caste, religion, and land ownership determine one’s vulnerability to climate change, and especially floods, in India.
Virtual Voice (7 mins, 2021, Sudan/Qatar) by Suzi Mirgani. This is a satirical review of our times. A self-righteous rant against sources of power. Suzi doll is an ego-warrior, marching to the algorithms of social media.
“The Sky Oscillates Between Eternity and Its Immediate Consequences” (Experimental, 18 mins, 2021, Lebanon) by Nadim Choufi. Two protagonists express their desires and the limitations of pursuing them as they live in a vision of a perfect city. From never-ending days that cannot afford them the privacy of the night, to secretly preserving inefficient plants or learning of new shadows of their lovers under different suns, their stories narrate how the control, isolation, and exploitation of time including seasons and organisms’ lifetimes form the blueprint to achieve such flawless futures.
“Bottle Cap” (Animation, 5 mins, 2022, USA) by Marie Hyon and Marco Spier. Claw-size matters to a fiddler crab, so when a plastic bottle cap stands in for Shelton’s worthless digging claw, he feels powerful, but this kind of glory will come at a horrible cost.

Q&A with Filmmakers (bios here):

Dale Hudson, New York University Abu Dhabi, Moderator
Bassam Alasad & Abeer Bayazidi, Greener Screen.
Lakshmi Sharma & Srishti Mehra, Chambal Media.
Suzi Mirgani, CIRS, Georgetown University in Qatar.

Screening details: December 9, 2023 at 3-5pm, Screen #5, Novo Cinema, Galleria Mall, Msheireb

Mapping Migrations Memories

Astrid Kensinger, VCUarts Qatar’s (IN)>TANGIBLE_LAB (Installation, 2023)

Headed by Astrid Kensinger, Mapping Migration Memories is a multi-year research project under VCUarts Qatar’s (IN)>TANGIBLE_LAB, that collects memories and oral histories of the biannual Qatari migrations for re-enactments, exhibitions, and cultural production. The exhibition seeks to not only document and preserve the intangible, but to translate and extend Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) through tangible and evocative manifestations. The project explores documentation processes through video, audio, photography, transcription, and translation of living culture. Traditions, festivals, rituals, customs, cuisines, songs, crafts, and games require cultural scholars, designers, artists, and scientists to collaborate together with communities to develop new methods for sustaining and extending ICH and Traditional Knowledge.

Exhibition Space: Temporary Exhibition Space, Company House, Msheireb Museums.

Msheireb Walking Tours

Date/Location: December 10, 2023 at 2:15pm, meet at Company House courtyard. Sign up at registration desks.

Tour 1: Msheireb Smart City (75 minute tour)

“What Constitutes a Smart City? Experience a one-of-a-kind journey that unveils the often-hidden smart city elements and infrastructure within Msheireb Downtown Doha. This exclusive tour offers participants a comprehensive look at the city’s cutting-edge smart features both above and below ground. Above ground, the tour showcases the district’s water-cooling tower, its on-site synthetic natural gas farm, the tram depot and its operations, and a smart apartment mockup. Participants will also venture underground, gaining rare access to the inner workings of the city’s impressive infrastructure. Beneath the surface, the tour highlights the city’s underground service tunnels, loading bays, district cooling and the on-site waste separation and management systems. The journey culminates in the command control center, the hub where data from over 650,000 IoT devices and sensors, as well as 10,000 CCTV cameras across the city, are proactively monitored, reported on, and analyzed. This data-driven approach informs and optimizes the city’s operations. Your guides for this unique tour will be the lead engineers of Msheireb Downtown Doha. The tour is a dynamic blend of walking and tram rides.

Tour 2: Mapping Migrations Memories Exhibition (30 minute tour). Exhibition tour guided by Sheikha Alanood Al Thani and Sara AlNaimi.

Everyday Oil

Initiated by Anne Pasek (community sketches of energy landscapes exhibited in a living gallery, December 9-10, 2023)

This activity asks us to observe moments of “everyday oil,” building off the work of scholar and practitioner Anne Pasek who noticed “oil surfaced in so many parts of my everyday life in Edmonton, forming an under-acknowledged foundation to institutions and imaginaries big and small.” She began to sketch these moments, bringing the subliminal to the surface, making the everyday feel strange, and allowing us to see, with fresh eyes, the world oil has made.

We invite you to see the everyday oil around us, creating a sketch to add to our living gallery. This collective exhibit will capture our many relationships to and perspectives on place–from lifelong residents of Doha to first-time visitors, allowing us to see the energy landscape around us anew.

(Image: Anne Pasek, Petroleum Plaza, Edmonton, Alberta. See more here.)