Dezeen School Shows: an exhibition featuring an audio composition that reflects urban transformation in Doha is among the projects from students at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar.

Also featured is a showcase celebrating the gaming, cosplay and role-playing communities in Qatar and an installation that explores the digitisation of Arabic script.

Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar

School: School of the Arts in Qatar
Course: Aghrab Idrāk: Thresholds of Perception
Tutors: Hesperia Iliadou and Chase Westfall
School statement:

"Aghrab Idrāk: Thresholds of Perception a Collateral Event presented by Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, explores perception as a
relational and situated way of knowing.

"Structured as a sequence of spatial thresholds, the exhibition invites visitors to move through environments shaped by light, shadow, sound, movement and material presence.

"Rather than centring spectacle, the works foreground subtle forms of experience – where meaning emerges through proximity, ambiguity and sustained sensory attention.

"The exhibition brings together projects from ten research labs within the Institute for Creative Research at VCUarts Qatar.

"Each lab contributes a distinct line of inquiry, forming a landscape of intersecting approaches rather than a single narrative.

"Together, the works reflect the Gulf region's long histories of exchange and circulation across space and time, emphasising plurality, mobility and layered cultural memory.

"Across the exhibition, material systems function as modes of sensing and inquiry. Light, sound and movement are not illustrative elements but active agents in the production of knowledge.

"Visitors encounter research not as fixed conclusions, but as evolving propositions – experiential, negotiated and emergent.

"Lab-based research at VCUarts Qatar operates as a collective and situated practice. Projects develop through experimentation, dialogue and shared authorship, remaining attentive to material, cultural and social conditions.

"In this context, place is not a backdrop but an active condition shaping how understanding takes form."

Mapping Migration Memories by (IN)>Tangible Lab

"Drawing on familial memories and oral histories, Mapping Migration Memories renders ephemeral cultural experience into a sensory archive.

"The project traces journeys across desert landscapes historically traversed by communities whose movements followed ecological rhythms, seasonal economies and social bonds.

"By immersing visitors in a soundscape, the work invites us to encounter the desert not as abstraction but as a specific, living environment – dense with subtle textures, dimensions, rhythms and beauty.

"Audio becomes a threshold into place, countering the visual dominance of contemporary media. As direct and immediate descendants of Qatar's migratory peoples, the young women participating in the project renew embodied connections to family and heritage, positioning them within a living continuum of knowledge.

"Migration emerges not simply as movement across space, but as a relational practice linking environment, memory and community across generations."

Students: Latifa Al Ali, Alaa Albarazy, Maha AlMarri, Sara Al Naimi, Alanood Al Thani, Aspa Chatziefthimiou, Raviv Cohen, Fatima Dauleh, Louis-Philippe Demers, Guillaume Rouseré and Shaima Sherif
Lab: (IN)>Tangible Lab
Tutor: Astrid Kensinger

Oceans and Lands: Drifting Senses and Knowledges by GA:MA Lab

"Oceans and Lands: Drifting Senses and Knowledges explores histories of circulation across the Indian Ocean, where trade and empire fueled movements of peoples, materials and cultures between the African coast and Asian subcontinent.

"Textiles, trade goods, antique furniture, costumes and sound combine in an installation that foregrounds the body as a transmutable archive – bearing traces of trauma and adaptation.

"Churning like water, the meaning of each object is polyvalent and intersectional: a colonial desk and sailor's trunk, symbols of alien authority and extractivist violence, double as repositories of sensory memory, echoing how histories are inscribed in biology and onto everyday objects.

"Sound becomes a vessel for listening to layered pasts, gathering fragments of experience that official narratives often erase.

"Moving between stillness and motion, the installation invites reflection on how migration, memory and power remain entangled within the material conditions that shape historical consciousness."

Student: Kathyayini Dash
Lab: GA:MA Lab
Tutors: Neelima Jeychandran and Monica Merlin

Bandhani Arabi: From Thread to Word by TypeAraby

"Bandhani Arabi: From Thread to Word investigates language as a terrain of cultural exchange. Through collaborative community workshops with local artisans, the project emphasises language as an adaptive, open system, continually reshaped through collective labour.

"The unique materiality of the calligraphic letterforms of Arabic and South Asian traditions becomes both method and metaphor, demonstrating how embodied cultural knowledge travels through space and time.

"These letterforms reveal centuries of cultural transmission among regions linked by trade, migration and faith, where scripts and symbols circulated alongside goods and peoples.

"As it does with language, the project reinvigorates craft as a site of shared experience and experimentation. Typography emerges as a threshold between languages, geographies and histories, highlighting the plural genealogies that inform contemporary visual culture."

Students: Shima Aeinehdar, Zainab Al‑Shibani, Selma Fejzulla, Ishan Khosla, Meera Trivedi Bandhani, Bhavana Ajani, Fahd Khatri, Farheen Khatri, Farzana Khatri, Saleha Khatri, Samiya Khatri, Talha Khatri, Shabana Manjothi, Nuren Memon and Rizwana Momon
Lab: TypeAraby
Tutor: Basma Hamdy

Chrysalis by Boost Lab

"Chrysalis emerges from interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists and engineers, demonstrating how research expands through collective inquiry.

"At its centre is a breathing mechanical sculpture whose rhythmic motion evokes the fragile reciprocity between organic bodies and the atmosphere they inhabit.

"Designed to purify air, the device appears almost animate: its organic forms and audible respiration invite viewers to recognise parallels between technological systems and living creatures.

"Listening to its breath heightens awareness of our own, foregrounding the shared ecological conditions that sustain life.

"In this exchange, the sculpture's restorative action – cleansing what human industry has polluted – becomes both technological intervention and symbolic gesture.

"The work proposes an ethics of cohabitation, where innovation and responsibility converge in response to planetary fragility."

Students: Rola Al‑Soubaihi, Levi Hammett and Erzum Naqvi
Lab: Boost Lab
Tutor: Rab McClure

The Gulf Between Us by Water With Water

"The Gulf Between Us is a crowdsourced publishing initiative that assembles plural narratives of the Gulf region. Through collaborative authorship and design, the project resists singular histories in favour of a participatory archive shaped by many voices.

"Contributors share personal reflections, memories and speculative perspectives, revealing the Gulf as a dynamic field of perpetual cultural negotiation.

"Print becomes a democratic medium – circulating stories beyond institutional frameworks, and preserving experiences that might otherwise remain fleeting.

"In an era dominated by digital platforms, the tactile intimacy of the printed book asserts the continued relevance of analogue forms.

"The publication thus operates simultaneously as artwork, archive and social platform, foregrounding collective storytelling as a method for imagining more inclusive histories and futures."

Students: Sarah Elawad and Sherifa Eletrebi
Lab: Water With Water
Tutor: Nathan Davis

Whispers from United Geekdom by Anthro-tech Atelier

"Whispers from United Geekdom explores the vibrant subcultures of gaming, cosplay and role-playing communities within Qatar.

"Through intimate video 'portraits' and modular installation, the project documents how participants construct imaginative worlds that challenge conventional identities and social expectations.

"These communities cultivate spaces of belonging where individuals experiment with multiple selves, transforming feelings of marginality into creative empowerment.

"By foregrounding these practices, the work complicates stereotypes about Middle Eastern cultural life, while also expanding local conversations about individuality and expression.

"The modular structure of the installation mirrors the flexible networks that sustain these communities – nimble, adaptive and collaborative.

"Together, the voices gathered here reveal how speculative imagination can function as a powerful form of social connection and cultural self-definition, contributing to a parallel history of place."

Lab: Anthro-tech Atelier
Project team: Ali Al-anssari, Alaa Albarazy, Abdulla Jassim Al-Mosallam, Ahmad Hashim Al-Mushaddani, Ahmad Al-Sharif and Karmina Asaad
Tutors: Johan Granberg and Byradley Yyelland

Preceding Emptiness by xLab

"Preceding Emptiness reconsiders the relationship between language, technology and the body, and how these occupy space.

"Experimental digital systems provide new geometric frameworks that allow Arabic script to inhabit computational environments on its own terms.

"Conventional digital infrastructures often privilege Latin alphabets, subtly shaping how languages are represented and experienced online.

"By foregrounding the physical gestures and spatial logics embedded in Arabic calligraphy, the project proposes an alternative digital ecology for language, not only visual but also sonoric.

"Visitors encounter script at an architectural scale, transforming reading into a phenomenological experience of light, movement, form and sound.

"In doing so, Preceding Emptiness asserts the cultural and epistemological value of non-Western linguistic traditions, opening technological space for diverse worldviews to emerge and circulate.

Students: Fatima Abbass and Hind Al Saad
Lab: xLab
Tutors: Haithem El-Hammali, Levi Hammett and Mohammad Suleiman

A Monocular Monologue by Mesh Lab

"A Monocular Monologue stages a physical encounter with artificial intelligence, as both a technological artefact and philosophical mirror.

"A robotic figure speaks poetically about its own existence, reflecting on humanity's long history of creating or conjuring forces that exceed its control – from natural phenomena to scientific advancement, divine intervention and now machine intelligence.

"Rather than presenting AI simplistically as a threat or tool, the work situates it within this broader lineage of human ambition and uncertainty, drawing from archaic myths and histories.

"Meeting the robot face-to-face transforms abstraction into presence, inviting visitors to listen to a voice that embodies both our existential aspirations and anxieties.

"In this exchange, artificial intelligence becomes less an external adversary than a medium through which we confront enduring questions about agency, responsibility and the limits of human understanding."

Lab: Mesh Lab
Tutor: Louis-Philippe Demers

And I Was Left Behind by AlBokeh Lab

"And I Was Left Behind راحوا و خلوني… reflects on migration, separation and loss, exploring how certain memories, especially those of childhood, sustain intimacy across distance and time.

"Centred on the relationship between a woman and her grandmother, the piece foregrounds sewing and textile labour as acts of care and cultural continuity.

"Thread is both material and metaphor – binding together stories of displacement, resilience, familial intimacy and obligation.

"Through gestures of stitching and repair, the video evokes the quiet labour through which families remain connected despite temporal and geographical dispersal.

"Absence and displacement appear as conditions of contemporary life that demand new forms of closeness.

"Emphasising the tactile languages of craft, the video reveals how cultural memory and emotional bonds are maintained through everyday acts, becoming an archive of endurance and relational knowledge."

Student: Suzannah Mirghani
Lab: AlBokeh Lab
Tutor: Maysaa Almumin

Sonic Fields by Sonic Jeel

"Sonic Fields gathers the disappearing soundscapes of Doha as the city undergoes rapid transformation.

"Drawing from field recordings across the city's diverse and vibrant public spaces, the project creates a generative audio environment in which fragments of urban life continually intersect and overlap.

"Rather than presenting a fixed composition, the work unfolds through ongoing permutations of sound – echoes of the city's everyday rhythms.

"These evolving sonic textures function as an archive of place, and of the people that inhabit it, preserving moments that would otherwise be lost to time.

"Listening becomes an act of historical attention, raising questions about how memory persists within the auditory environment.

"By foregrounding sound as a vehicle of cultural and spatial documentation, Sonic Fields reminds us that the city is not only a visual landscape, but a living field of multi-sensory resonance."

Lab: Sonic Jeel
Tutors: Michael Hersrud and Simone Muscolino

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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