NEWS
Original Source: http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com, 21st March 2011
http://tinyurl.com/67dcykh
DOHA: The international design conference Tasmeem 2011 will reel off today at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCU-Q) presenting 14 speakers and 14 workshops.
The conference will be held with interdisciplinary and collaborative activities designed to generate awareness, raise important questions and provide meaningful, realizable solutions to the industry.
The Tasmeem 2011 with a theme “Synapse: Designer as Link” sponsored by VCU-Q in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Qatar Foundation, will be opened at 6pm today at the atrium at VCU-Q.
The conference is open to the general public.
The event is a working conference, featuring student driven teams investigating the role of design as a problem solving activity that tackles community issues, our daily life-worlds and future concerns.
Through the idea of ‘Synapse’, VCU-Q aims to forge dynamic links between students, creative problem solvers, local community members, community stakeholders and VCU-Q.
In keeping with this theme, VCU-Q together with Pink Tank UAE is organising TasmeemLab: ‘Linking through Making’, a performance of Arab design creation and collaboration.
Four designers from the Arab world–Product designer Younes Duret from Morocco, interior designer Khalid Shafar from the UAE, and graphic designers Richard Kahwagi, from Lebanon and Manar Al Muftah from Qatar—will give live demonstrations of how their work is made. Visitors will be offered a rare view into the designers’ workshop spaces to understand the process that goes into the creation of design products.
Reflecting on the theme ‘link’ each designer will produce a piece in front of the public that reflects the notion of design as a connector between different materials, disciplines or society.
TasmeemLab is also a matchmaking exercise where designers will work together on the creation of common products at the event.
This exercise will explore how different creative methods become compatible when they intersect as the designers combine their expertise and creative minds in this collaborative process.
The teams will prototype their design ideas in live sessions, allowing audiences to observe this dynamic interplay and watch the evolution of the designs as they are created.
Individual and collective products will be presented on March 24, the final day of the conference.
