“Ruins, Derelicts & Erasure” Exhibition at VCUarts Qatar focuses on Destruction of Cultural Heritage and Built Environments

VCUarts Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university, is hosting an exhibition highlighting the response of artists and designers to deliberate acts of cultural erasure through the destruction of historical roots, values, heritage, literature, traditions, and language of a culture or people. 

Titled ‘Ruins, Derelicts & Erasure’ the exhibition will be open to the public at the VCUarts Qatar Gallery until May 11, 2025.

The exhibition features installations by five artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: Nour Shantout (Syrian/Palestinian), Tibian Bahari from Sudan, Dima Srouji from Palestine, the creative studio Beirut Urban Lab from Lebanon, and Sarri Elfaitouri from Libya. These artists have lived experiences of erasure in their respective contexts of Sudan, Libya, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. They were pushed to define their nation’s new identities despite the perpetual upheaval and destruction of the past decades. 

The artists’ works are a form of resilience and highlight the need to preserve their countries’ heritage, culture and history. They use various media such as textiles, sand, print, imagery, data visualization, and graphic design to show the cultural and social constructs of conflict areas around the world. 

For further information on the exhibition, click here.