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In Conversation

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Date

December 19, 2021

Guest(s)

Layla Ibrahim Bacha, Senior Art Specialist at Qatar Foundation
Mohamad Hafez, Artist

Acknowledgment

Reham Mohamed for the music

2022, Artist, In Conversation, Remembering Home

Join Qatar Foundation’s Senior Art Specialist Layla Ibrahim Bacha in conversation with artist Mohamad Hafez to learn more about his work and his exhibition ‘What is Home to You?‘ hosted by The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar from January 12 to Feb 19, 2022.

The conversation is available only in English.

Visit the Arabic version here

Biographies

Layla Ibrahim Bacha
Senior Art Specialist at Qatar Foundation

@laylaibrahimbacha

Layla Ibrahim Bacha has more than 10 years of experience in curating and managing cultural events and projects. Currently, she is managing the art portfolio in Qatar Foundation which includes major public artworks and museum collections.

Layla Ibrahim Bacha is a member of several committees in Qatar including the public art committee, museum operational committee, as well as the curatorial committee of an upcoming museum in Education City. Also, she was part of working groups focusing on public art regulation in Qatar.

Layla Ibrahim Bacha has given several lectures about Public art curation and history, and her MA dissertation was about public art policies in Qatar. She received a bachelor’s degree in Arts plastiques from La Sorbonne university in Paris and MA in museum studies from the university and college of London (UCL).

Mohamad Hafez
Artist

@mohamad_hafez
www.mohamadhafez.com

A Syrian-American artist and architect, Mohamad Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern United States. Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal. Using his architectural skills, Hafez creates surrealistic Middle Eastern streetscapes that are architectural in their appearance yet politically charged in their content.

He currently serves as a 2018 Yale University Silliman College Fellow, Interpreter in Residence at U-Chicago Oriental Institute, and artist-in-residence at the Keller Center of Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago.

In 2019, he was selected as one of the 40 under 40 artists in the Middle East by London’s Apollo Magazine.

Takeaways

"For me, to take part in this very highly detailed miniature work of re-creating home was very therapeutic. It made me feel connected, and it made me feel at home." - Mohamad Hafez

"The beauty of miniature work is that it attracts a 7 year-old and a 75 year-old. Miniature works combined with the absolute genius of the human imagination is a fantastic duo. You have to leave room for the human imagination to take place. As an artist, I just carve the scene that the viewer's imagination will fly through." - Mohamad Hafez

"My place as an artist was to understand the dark times I was living in - hence, comes the destruction pieces and the realism. However, we are not people of despair. We are believers, we believe that there is justice that will prevail. We believe in life, we believe in rebuilding. So, having the optimism aspect in my work was crucial - not only for the future generations to come, but also to the current generations that are living under these circumstances." - Mohamad Hafez

Remembering Home

JAN–
FEB 2022

In Conversation

Biographies

Takeaways

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Remembering Home