Tasmeem Doha: Radical Futures

Events Details

Tasmeem Doha is an international, biennial art and design conference hosted and organized by VCUarts Qatar since 2004. Each edition of Tasmeem Doha highlights a unique and contemporary theme within art and design, exploring novel concepts, methods, and applications, and engaging in critical discussions. The event is open to the public, with attendees and participants consisting of international designers, artists, academics, students, industry professionals, and the local community.

The 2022 conference Radical Futures addresses the role of design in shaping the future. Tasmeem Doha 2022: Radical Futures is an inclusive and multi-faceted view of the future, one that not only speculates on technological advancements—but on future threats and changes whether environmental, geographical, cultural, or social. Now more than ever, we must ask pertinent questions, raise critical dialogues, and respond with clarity.

Gulf Metaverse 2.0 Film Festival Opening with Róisín Tapponi
The Gulf Metaverse 2.0 Film Festival will be introduced by curator Róisín Tapi in the Atrium at 3:15 pm (7 March 2022)
Date and Time: 7 March 2022, 3:15 pm

The Gulf Metaverse 2.0 is a short program featuring 10 artist films from the Gulf that explore cultural shifts, digital transmission, and speculative futures curated Róisín Tapponi and sponsored by Shasha Movies.

This registration is for the in-person talk by Róisín Tapponi on the FIRST DAY of screenings of the film program. The first screenings will take place in the Atrium on 7th March 2022 at 3:15 PM for the VCUarts Qatar community only.

Keynote by Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture) in the Atrium
Forensic Architecture 7 March 2022 Keynote, 5:30 pm

Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, investigating human rights violations including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries, and corporations. FA works in partnership with institutions across civil society, from grassroots activists to legal teams, to international NGOs and media organizations, to carry out investigations with and on behalf of communities and individuals affected by conflict, police brutality, border regimes, and environmental violence. Our investigations employ cutting-edge techniques in spatial and architectural analysis, open-source investigation, digital modeling, and immersive technologies, as well as documentary research, situated interviews, and academic collaboration. Findings from our investigations have been presented in national and international courtrooms, parliamentary inquiries, and exhibitions at some of the world’s leading cultural institutions and in international media, as well as in citizen’s tribunals and community assemblies.

Futurisms: A Discussion with Ingrid LaFleur
A panel discussion between Alisha B Wormsley, Jasmine Murrell, Saba Taj, and Saks Afridi led by curator Ingrid LaFleur in the Atrium (virtual + in-person options available).
8 March 2022 Panel Discussion, 5:30 pm

Futurisms is a possible trajectory. It is a cross-cultural journey mapped by the desire for a future filled with love and beauty. This exhibition brings together artists Jasmine Murrell, Saba Taj, Alisha Wormsley, Saks Afridi, and the artist collective, Hyphen Labs, to initiate a conversation between Afrofuturism, Sci-fi Sufism, and Muslim Futures. Each artist reminds us that we can still find the utopia within the dystopia. Here, embodied knowledge is liberatory technology. A technology activated only through vulnerability, reverence, empathy, and excitement. Futurisms engages this technology to offer a way forward. Futurisms charts strategies for imagining a fruitful future, one that helps us to confront ourselves and recognize the magic inside.

Planet City and the Return of Global Wilderness
Talk by Liam Young (designer, director, and BAFTA-nominated producer) in the Atrium
9 March 2022, 2:00 pm

Following centuries of colonization, globalization, and never-ending economic extraction we have remade the world from the scale of the cell to the tectonic plate. In the storytelling performance Planet City we go on a science fiction safari through an imaginary city for the entire population of the earth, where 10 billion people surrender the rest of the world to a globally scaled wilderness and the return of stolen lands. Set against the consistent failure of nation-states to act in any meaningful way against climate change, Planet City emerges from a global citizen consensus, a voluntary and multi-generational retreat from our vast network of cities and entangled supply chains into one hyper-dense metropolis.

Source and image credit: VCUArtsQatar