Founded in 2020, Mathqaf (مَثقَف) is a space and source for art and culture from West Asia and North Africa (WANA). As a research-based platform and a curatorial collective, we publish, curate, collaborate and champion art through documentation of artists’ lives and institutional histories, articles and interviews with curators, collectors, and institutions hailing from all over the region and its diasporas.
WHAT DO WE DO?
At Mathqaf (مَثقَف) we wander from exhibitions to artists’ studios in different cities to share stories and experiences of artists and art from the region. Through our digital publication and projects, we discuss, document, and promote the making and conditions of modern and contemporary art in the WANA region and in its diasporas. By presenting to you relevant, inspiring and thought-provoking articles and interviews discussing the regional art scene and institutional practices, we aim to broaden the historical and theoretical discourses on regional art and culture.
WHAT TO EXPECT?
At Mathqaf (مَثقَف), we are dedicated to present the richness of the region to local and global audiences. Our mission is to offer a constellation of biographies, archives, documents, and histories of institutions. Thereby becoming a source for cultural institutions and modern and contemporary art from West Asia and North Africa.
WHO ARE WE?
Wadha Al-Aqeedi is the co-founder of Mathqaf, curator and art historian, based between Doha and Paris. From 2016 until 2020, she worked at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha as an Assistant Curator. Presently, she is a PhD candidate at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research interests include performance and media art, cultural history and policy of the Gulf region. In her doctoral research, she investigates how performance art has emerged as an artistic language that carries out discourses that relate to society and contemporary issues, from and within the Arab world.
Elina Sairanen is the co-founder of Mathqaf, museologist and art historian. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in museology at the University of Leicester. Elina’s research focuses on the emergence of pan-Arab art collections and institutions. Her research interests include modern Arab art and its institutions as well as art museum histories particularly in the Mashriq. Before starting her PhD, Elina worked for MoMA in New York and the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Elina holds an MA in Museum and Gallery Practice from UCL and a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences from University College Maastricht. She has also studied Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic at the University of Edinburgh.