ARTWEEK 2026: Community as Practice

VCUarts Qatar presents the second edition of ARTWEEK 2026: Community as Practice, hosted by the Painting and Printmaking (PAPR) Department on campus in Doha.

Rooted in collaboration, care, and openness, ARTWEEK 2026 brings together students, artists, educators, and cultural practitioners to explore how communities form through artistic practice, and how learning unfolds within and beyond the studio.

Across three days, the program features workshops, lecture-performances, panel discussions, open studios, and informal gatherings. Emphasizing the studio as both a site of making and exchange, ARTWEEK foregrounds shared experience, dialogue, and collective rhythms of working together as central to contemporary art education.

Building on collaborations between VCUarts Qatar and VCUarts Richmond, and conversations sparked by Living to Learn: Art & Education for the Common Good, ARTWEEK 2026 positions Qatar as a key site for rethinking the future of art education, pedagogy, and community-driven practice, with particular attention to regional networks and alternative spaces emerging from the Gulf.

Speakers & Guest Artists
Sara Niroobakhsh · Mohammed Somji · Keng Sen Ong · Rose Lejeune · Habeeb Abu Futtaim · Naiza Khan · Sarah Rifkey · Walid Sadek · Aissa Deebi · Zeina Al Arida · Rola Khayyat · Noah Simblist · Dean Amir Berbić

Sunday, February 1, 2026

Different Modalities of Community Practice

Join us for the opening keynote of ARTWEEK 2026, Different Modalities of Community Practice, featuring theatre and artistic director, Keng Sen Ong. A lunch reception will follow the keynote address. 

Please register your attendance via this link.

Keynote: 12–1:30 p.m.
Lunch reception: 1:30–2:30 p.m.
Atrium, VCUarts Qatar

Living to Learn: Art & Education for the Common Good

This panel discussion centered around Noah Simblist’s book, Living to Learn: Art & Education for the Common Good, will be moderated by Simblist and include panelists Sarah Rifkey, Walid Sadek, Dr. Aissa Deebi and Zeina Arida.

Please register your attendance via this link.

2:30–4 p.m.
Atrium, VCUarts Qatar

Monday, February 2, 2026

Studio Visits by Sara Niroobakhsh

PAPR students are invited to attend a session with Sara Niroobakhsh, a multidisciplinary artist and educator with over two decades of experience working across Canada, the U.S., Iran, and the UAE. Niroobakhsh is currently a Visiting Assistant Art Professor in the Interactive Media program at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).

10 a.m.–12:20 p.m.

Closed event for invited PAPR students only.

Artistic Communities & Shared Practices

This panel discussion, moderated by Rola Khayyat, will be a conversation on how artists collaborate, share knowledge, support one another, and explore collective making. Panelists in this discussion include Rose Lejeune, Mohamed Somji, Habeeb Abu Futtaim and Naiza Khan.

Please register your attendance via this link.

1:30–3 p.m.
Atrium, VCUarts Qatar

Painting + Printmaking Open Studios

Explore the Department of Painting + Printmaking at our Open Studios event! 

Step into our studios. Immerse yourself in our inspiring environment. Whether you’re an aspiring artist or simply curious, this is a great chance to discover the art – and heart – of our community!

Observe our students working on their creative projects. Engage with them and learn more about their artistic practices and research. Chat with our friendly faculty who will be on hand to provide information on our curriculum, projects, and future opportunities. 

Please register your attendance via this link.

3:30–5:30 p.m.
PAPR Studios, VCUarts Qatar

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

When the System Fails Us: Community as Practice

Across the SWANA region, artists are increasingly questioning dominant cultural frameworks shaped by power, capital, and ideology — including Western institutional models long complicit in silencing, extraction, and erasure. In the context of the genocide in Gaza and widening repression, many artists are choosing not to wait for permission or inclusion within systems that demand neutrality in the face of violence.

This workshop looks at how artists are building otherwise: forming collectives, creating alternative spaces, sharing resources, and developing ways of practising that are rooted in community rather than institutional approval. These efforts are complex and often fragile, shaped by real challenges and limitations, but they are intentional, principled, and growing.

Drawing on examples from across the SWANA region, this workshop will be a space to think together — to share what we are seeing, what we are part of, and what feels possible. Rather than offering fixed answers, the session focuses on building shared language, confidence, and ways of working, and on imagining how artists can continue reshaping the cultural landscape by building otherwise, together.

10 a.m.–12 p.m.

Closed event for invited PAPR students only.

Art, Care, and Technical Mediation: Performing Life in Contemporary Contexts

This lecture introduces the transdisciplinary research practice of Sara Niroobakhsh, Artist and Research Scholar at New York University Abu Dhabi, working at the intersection of performance, bio-technological inquiry, and immersive systems. Developed through long-term collaboration with scientific laboratories and researchers, her work examines the body as a site of care and construction, foregrounding fragility, intimacy, and the limits of control within contemporary technological frameworks. The lecture explores how voice, sensation, and embodied processes are mediated through technology, inviting reflection on inherited assumptions about identity, origin, creation, and biological determinism.

The talk will be followed by closing remarks by PAPR Director, Dr. Aissa Deebi.

Please register your attendance via this link.

12:30–2 p.m.
Atrium, VCUarts Qatar

Lunch Break & Music

Join us for lunch and live music by Michel Dagher (Spice Collective) during the last day of ARTWEEK 2026.

Please register your attendance via this link.

2–3:30 p.m.
Courtyard, VCUarts Qatar