Doha

Qatar Museums (QM), under the guidance of its chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, officially launched the new Fire Station building and Artists in Residence programme as well as the inaugural “555” exhibition.

Since 2012, Qatar Museums’ team has been working on renovating the old Civil Defence Building (commonly known as the old Fire Station) in preparation for hosting the new Artist in Residence programme. To honour the heritage and traditions of the past while embracing the future, Qatar Museums has been keen to preserve the original façade and recycle many of the features, allowing the original integrity of the building to remain intact, it said in a statement.

HE Sheikha Al Mayassa said, “Arts, creativity and heritage play a vital role in the development of our country, supporting the pillars of our national vision. Today’s opening of the Fire Station marks an important milestone towards this, highlighting just how much the art community is flourishing as well as providing the ideal support to the next generation of cultural producers.

“As a hub for creative exchange, the Fire Station will help inspire an indigenous culture of creativity and innovation in Qatar. I’m incredibly proud of what’s been achieved by the team to date, and excited to see what comes next.”

The Artist in Residence programme, which is scheduled to commence in September, will span a period of nine months and initially include 20 artists from a range of disciplines, including art, photography, design, architecture and other fields. The residency programme will first be open to local Qatari artists and residents of Qatar and at a later stage to regional artists.

Commenting on the launch, Hala al-Khalifa, director of the Fire Station, said: “It’s a great pleasure to witness the opening of the new Fire Station building. This building has served the community very well in the past 30 years and will now continue to do so in a different context. Through this residency programme, we hope to nurture and support a vibrant local art scene and give young and emerging artists a shared space to experiment, create, grow and flourish."

In parallel with the launch of the Fire Station, the “555” exhibition was officially launched in homage to The Art Centre, the first artist in residence initiative that took place in Doha in the early 1990s and which ran for a decade. Curated by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali al-Thani, the “555” exhibition aims to showcase a pivotal era in the development of arts not only in Qatar, but the region as a whole.

“Our measure of success as a residency is to see how the young artists we support will be able to 'fly away into the world' and to be continuously creative. At the end of their nine months, we hope they will have developed and honed their artistic identity and voice and that we will be able to introduce them to a range of opportunities, contacts and openings to enable them to manage their art, get themselves noticed and help cultivate a career,” added al-Khalifa.

Equipped to host the 20 artists selected to join the Fire Station, the building is home to 24 studios and a gallery space for exhibitions and community interaction. Twenty studios will be open to those artists selected to join the residency, while four will be reserved for visiting artists. The Fire Station premises will also feature public attractions such as a park, library, an arts and crafts shop, a cinema, plaza and restaurant to foster an interactive environment and engage the local community.

The residency programme will also offer the 20 artists weekly mentoring programmes and access to QM museums, special exhibitions, lectures as well as to QM’s experienced museum curators.

The Doha Fire Station was built in 1982 as a Civil Defence building. It was occupied by the fire brigade until late 2012 when the building was handed over to Qatar Museums for preservation and conservation and to sensitively recycle elements of the original architecture.