Refractions: Tasweer Project Awards - Curator Led Tour
Event
Refractions: Tasweer Project Awards – Curator-Led Tour
Join Sheikha Maryam Hassan Al Thani, Curator of the Tasweer Project Awards, for a guided tour of the Refractionsexhibition at Katara Galleries 45 and 46. Explore the unique artistic expressions and concepts behind each featured work, and gain deeper insight into the creative processes and themes presented by the Tasweer 2023 and 2024 Project Awardees.
ABOUT THE CURATOR - SHEIKHA MARYAM HASSAN MOHAMED A. AL THANI
Currently a Consultant Curator in the exhibitions department at Qatar Museums. Maryam has held numerous positions at Qatar Museums, such as the head curator of Tasweer Festival (2020-2023). Maryam has most recently co-curated the Art Mill 2030 exhibition, which opened in October 2022 and is the instigator and curator of Tasweer's Contemporary Heritage Projects.
Maryam has previously worked on the photographic aspect of Qatar Contemporary: Art and Photography presented in Russia (2018) and has also served as the co-curator of the exhibition Cultural Exposures: Photography and Film from Qatar in Berlin (2017). She has also curated the exhibition Fragments: An Exhibition by Mahmoud Obaidi (2016) and co-curated Art Mill Museum 2030 (2022-2023) while working for Qatar Museums. Additionally, she has previously commissioned international artists for the National Museum of Qatar. Her work on public art commissions includes Richard Serra: East-West; KAWS: Small Lie; Jean Michel-Othoniel: Cosmos; and Simone Fattal: Gates of the Sea.
Portrait by Maryam Wahid
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Refractions explores the idea of belonging, highlighting how concepts of home and place resonate differently across a region where identity has long been shaped by movement and adaptation. Located in two interconnected buildings at Katara’s Cultural Village—buildings 45 and 46, this exhibition brings together 18 contemporary Arab photographers whose works examine how ancient patterns of mobility collide with modern barriers, borders, and ecological shifts.
Through varied visual approaches—such as aerial photography, family portraiture, recovered archives, and long-term studies—the artists in this exhibition reveal how the notion of belonging in the MENA region is in a state of constant flux. The artists' works navigate the tensions between movement and rootedness, personal memories and collective histories, as well as adaptation and preservation. These images suggest that "belonging" should perhaps be understood differently in this context—not as a fixed relationship to a place, but as a dynamic negotiation with ever-changing landscapes, both physical and political.
Like light refracting through a prism, their lenses capture how identity scatters and reforms, creating new patterns of affiliation even in moments of profound changes. Through their diverse styles displayed across these adjacent spaces, they map the complex terrain where personal memory intersects with displacement and where cultural preservation meets transformation.
This presentation is part of the third edition of the biennial Tasweer Photo Festival Qatar and showcases the works of the recipients of the 2023 and 2024 Tasweer Project Awards. Together, these photographers reveal how the sense of belonging persists through change as communities maintain their essential connections to land, water, and each other. Their images contribute to this adaptive tradition, not only documenting change, but also participating in the ongoing work of carrying cultural memory forward into contemporary creative frameworks.
