New Leaders, Exhibitions, and Milestones: Qatar America Institute for Culture Celebrates Another Successful Season

Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) serves as a vital and unique bridge between Qatar, the United States, and the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. Ongoing cultivation of artistic expression and cultural dialogue has risen to new heights in 2023.

International Women’s Month, National Arab American Heritage Month, and Ramadan all presented myriad opportunities to grow and nurture a broad and growing audience online and offline. Celebrations at QAIC’s historic abode, as well as additional partnering opportunities, including at the Library of Congress, the White House, UNRWA USA, Qatar Foundation, Howard University, Women Ambassadors Foundation and the Embassy of the State of Qatar, serve to strengthen the ties that bind us. Art, culture and dialogue not only transcend geographic borders, but they also erase them.

QAIC’s 2023 participation in the Dupont Circle’s BID monthly ArtWalk, now places us aside esteemed galleries and museums, including the Phillips Collection and the Middle East Institute’s Arts and Culture Center. Since joining this decades-long monthly neighborhood initiative, visitors to QAIC have more than tripled. These evenings welcome new friends of all ages, backgrounds and levels of familiarity with Arab art, culture and foods. It is this kind of community outreach, entwined with rich partnerships with Qatar Museums, VCUarts Qatar, the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, and many others, that makes Qatar America Institute for Culture just that: Qatar-America!

Yet another way to eliminate boundaries and bridge cultures, and to cement the institute as a D.C. landmark, is a rare jewel at QAIC: the one-of-a-kind Perfumery Museum, a journey through the senses and an introduction to the history, science, and stories behind this form of art from the East and the West.

QAIC’s signature programs continue to be strong, with special events highlighting Arab creatives including the renowned Refugee Olympic Team swimmer and UNCHR Goodwill Ambassador, Yusra Mardini, as well as award-winning filmmaker, Oualid Mouaness. QAIC’s inaugural IMPART Artist Grant awardees’ work was reviewed in The Washington Post following an exhibition organized in partnership with fellow non-profit gallery, IA&A at Hillyer in March. At the same time, six olfactory art experts and artists joined a week-long QAIC-sponsored delegation to Doha, Qatar, for a first-hand educational and cultural experience. The delegates will participate in a Perfumery Symposium during QAIC’s IMPART Summit and Design Festival this coming October.

The pinnacle of events was the United & Empowered: Arab and Gulf Women Leaders Eid Dinner Reception, supported by partners such as Advancement of Arab & Gulf Women in America, Bentley and Cartier. Women from eleven different Arab nations, led by the women ambassadors from Kuwait, Mauritania, Tunisia and the United States, joined together in growing bonds of friendship.

Looking toward the next half of 2023, while reflecting on the past half, QAIC could not achieve all it has done and will do without the strong leadership it is so lucky to have. From the newest member of QAIC board of directors, George Rudenauer, to eight new advisory council members including, Sheikha Alanound Al Thani, Dr. Amal Al Malki, Dr. Safwan Masri, Dr. Susan L. Karamanian, Deborah Sawaf, Nancy Brimhall, Dr. Khalid Al Jufairi, and Najwan Nayef, QAIC is extremely honored and grateful to grow its family of ambassadors in Qatar and the United States.

Together, these achievements show a tightly aligned, productive and proactive QAIC, poised for what is shaping up to be a very successful year. As QAIC continues to move through 2023, the focus on technology and the arts will intertwine all upcoming programs. Events to watch for and join include the opening of Pearls of Wonder: a digital era, the QAIC Summer Festival, the Annual IMPART Summit: Congress for Creatives and Design Festival.

The Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) is a Washington, D.C.-based independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates, curates and executes programs and research that amplify the prominence of all forms of art and culture from the United States, Qatar and the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. To learn more about QAIC, please visit qataramerica.org.

For more information or images for press, please contact Susan Barrows Libby, Director of Communications, [email protected].

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