Khalifa Al Obaidli, Director of Fire Station Artist in Residence, speaking at a recent media event at the Museum of Islamic Art. Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula
The Fire Station Artist in Residence has expanded its residency programme with the launch of the Paris Art Residency Program which provides Qatari artists three-month residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts-Paris - the biggest and most important art residency in the world.
This new programme supports Qatari artists by giving them the opportunity to further enhance their experience through interaction with artists from different countries and backgrounds.
“Thanks to the efforts of Qatar Museums, we have opened a studio of Qatar in Paris for an extension of our Artist in Residence program. This is a three-month art residency open to Qatari artists which will witness the participation of four artists every year,” said Khalifa Al Obaidli, Director of Fire Station Artist in Residence.
Qatari contemporary artist Ibtisam Al Saffar has been chosen to be the first artist to undertake the residency which runs until April 15.
A graduate from Qatar University's Faculty of Art Education in 1995, Ibtisam is a member of the Qatar Fine Arts Society and has taken part in exhibitions in various countries such as France, Japan, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Oman, Morocco and Qatar.
“She will spend three months in Paris to gain valuable experience through interaction with artists from different parts of the world,” added Al Obaidli.
Since its inception, Cite Internationale des Arts-Paris has housed thousands of artists in its 325 studios with 125 operators from 55 countries. The residency has provided painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, dancers, writers, cinematographers, among others a certain degree of recognition.
The Fire Station Artist in Residence programme was launched in 2015 to create a space that offers an indigenous, local approach to creativity and artistic production for Qatari and Doha-based artists from various nationalities.
On its second cycle, the programme has 20 artists chosen from over 150 Qatari artists and residents w who applied for the nine-month residency programme.
Al Obaidli stressed the diversity of the artists in residence participating in the second edition of the programme which includes painters and sculptors as well as photographers and performance artists.
Film screenings and monthly talks featuring artists are some of the recent addition to the programme of the Fire Station that Al Obaidli mentioned.
The Fire Station’s Garage Gallery will be hosting the first exhibition dedicated to the work of Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti - two of the most important artists of the 20th century.
The exhibition will bring together more than 120 works by these two prominent artists drawn from the collections of the Musée National Picasso and the Fondation Giacometti in Paris, as well as exceptional loans from French and other international collections, covering paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs and interviews with the artists,” he said.
