Jan 12 2024 39 mins 1
Our first in four conversations is with Basma Hamdy, director of Tasmeem, and Peter Martin, one of the conference’s original co-directors. In this episode titled “Cross-cultural Kaleidoscopes” we discuss the birth of Tasmeem, and its evolution over the decades. Together Basma and Peter share the realities of putting together this kind of conference (especially during COVID-19) and how they think Tasmeem has influenced and impacted different audiences — including themselves.
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.
Under Construction will also explore the past, present and future of VCUQ’s flagship event Tasmeem. As part of the 25th anniversary of VCU’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.
The program will include talks, workshops, public exhibitions and performances.
Basma Hamdy is an assistant professor of graphic design at VCUarts Qatar and director of Tasmeem. She is a research-based designer, author and educator producing work that bridges historical, political and social issues with archival, documentarian, participatory and critical mechanisms. She is an advocate for collaboration and participatory practices, believing that design must promote multiperspectivity. She has collaborated with historians, photographers, designers, activists and cultural organizations to create work that reformulates or challenges established norms or conventions.
Peter Martin was one of the co-directors at the original Tasmeem conference. He holds a BS in Design and Environmental Analysis from Cornell University and an MFA in Graphic Design from Virginia Commonwealth University. His varied experience includes outdoor education, wooden boat building and organizational innovation consulting. He served as Interim Chair of Graphic Design at VCUarts Qatar (2016-2020), where he began teaching in 1999 where he co-led – in collaboration with VCUarts Richmond – the faculty’s development of a wholly new and forward-looking BFA curriculum. Since 2017 he has also been collaborating in developing interdisciplinary learning curricula and cultures with multiple universities of Qatar Foundation’s Education City campus. His design work investigates organizational and community participation platforms for co-creative processes for holistic and integrative transformations.
About The Tasmeem Podcast:
In collaboration with afikra, VCUarts Qatar has produced a series of four 30-minute podcasts available on YouTube featuring interviews with past Tasmeem Doha organizers, chairs and directors. The conversations delve into the origins, the memories and the connections that the conference has to them, the University and Qatar, and how the event evolved to become one of the most prestigious design conferences in the region.
This four-part series will be followed by another podcast series that will focus on specifics of the Tasmeem Doha 2024 conference which will be held in Qatar from March 2-5. The theme for the 2024 conference is Under Construction.
Hosted by:
Mikey Muhanna 👉 https://www.instagram.com/mikey_mu/
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
Watch other episodes in this series:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfYG40bwRKl5xACvhOprM03PXJms10_3g
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
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