2014 Exhibition with Diane Derr
“Lines in the Sand” was an interactive project linking Qatar’s past and present. The exhibition brought together realms that seem at first to be mutually exclusive – the historical and the contemporary; the real and the virtual; the tangible and the intangible. The collaborative project involving VCUQatar, University of Wales and the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) unearths Qatar’s rich and complex history through interactive media designed to create new and alternate frameworks through which one may view, use and engage with the past.
It was in 2011 that VCUQatar, University of Wales and the QMA began collaboratively working on the project. The principal aim has been to expand the visual recording of Qatar’s diverse cultural heritage in the documentation and preservation of a publicly accessible record, through new methods of recording and analysis based on the use of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) photography and video.
Building upon their collaborative research at the Al Ruwayda archaeological site, “Lines in the Sand” moved archaeology into the contemporary gallery and thus enables new and dynamic interactions, insights and juxtapositions. This, in turn, provides a critical understanding of Qatar’s past and encourages individual narratives to be constructed.
