Kindling a Creative Future
The Fire Station has become a central force in shaping Doha’s contemporary art scene, with its residency-led model nurturing a new generation of artists and an increasingly ambitious exhibitions programme
Few institutions embody Qatar’s artistic and cultural evolution as vividly as Qatar Museums’ Fire Station, a contemporary art space housed in a repurposed 1980s civil defence building that was used as Doha’s fire station for over 30 years. The creative hub opened in its current guise in 2014 with a singular mission: to support artists and develop the country’s art scene. Over the past decade, it has steadily transformed into one of Qatar’s most influential creative centres, and the celebrated Egyptian artist Wael Shawky was appointed as the organisation’s first artistic director in 2024 (see our feature on Shawky Epic Vision).
With his experience of founding and running MASS Alexandria – a similar residency-based art school in Egypt – Shawky’s appointment is intended to expand and deepen the Fire Station’s own programme. Today, the Artists Intensive Study Programme is a nine-month studio-based experience that blends the structure of an art school with the freedom of a residency. It is open to international applicants, with 23 artists from 15 different countries across the Gulf, the wider Middle East, North Africa, Europe, the US and Asia currently taking part.
Each week, visiting curators, artists, theorists and architects lead workshops, critiques and studio visits. The mission of this ambitious programme is to foster an interdisciplinary mindset in which experimentation and critical inquiry are treated as essential tools for art practice. This emphasis reflects a broader ambition to cultivate an artistic community within Qatar whose influence extends beyond the building’s walls through exhibitions, public talks and other engagements.
“Our hope is that it becomes a transformative experience for young artists,” says Rose Lejeune, head of academic and community programmes at the Fire Station. “There’s a spectrum of artistic practices and a diverse range of perspectives, and we want the programme to centre on the idea of fostering a community of artists in Doha who bring together different forms of experimentation and critical thinking across the contemporary art landscape.”
“Our hope is that it becomes a transformative experience for the young artists”
The international scope of the Artists Intensive Study Programme reflects the country itself – “Internationalism is built into the environment here,” says Lejeune – and the Fire Station is focused on connecting Qatar-based artists to wider conversations about contemporary art.
Not only does the Artists Intensive Study programme bring artists together from around the world, but the Fire Station also hosts two international programmes that provide Qatari artists with an opportunity to develop their artistic practice in Paris, at the Cité internationale des arts, and New York, at the International Studio
& Curatorial Program.
This outward-facing vision is also the driving force behind the Fire Station’s exhibition strategy. Many of the visiting creatives who teach as part of the residency programme also host exhibitions in the centre’s gallery spaces, opening the conversation to the public. And, as Doha steps onto a larger global stage by hosting Art Basel Qatar, the Fire Station will continue to play a pivotal role in defining the evolving community that is shaping the country’s creative future. ■
As part of Art Basel Qatar, three celebrated international artists – Chung Seoyoung, Ho Tzu Nyen and Haroon Mirza – will each present a solo exhibition at the Fire Station, reflecting the centre’s renewed vision and its commitment to showcasing distinct, conceptually driven approaches to contemporary art. Their work has already shaped conversations within the Artists Intensive Study Programme, and these exhibitions extend that influence into the public realm, opening a dialogue between Qatar and the international art community
Chung Seoyoung
South Korean artist Chung Seoyoung (born 1964) is known for her exploration of object and language through sculpture, installation, drawing, sound, performance and video. Endless Facts is her first solo exhibition in the Middle East, bringing together significant works from across her career to trace the evolution of a practice shaped by personal experience and collective memory.
Chung Seoyoung: Endless Facts
5 February-20 April 2026
Ho Tzu Nyen
Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen (born 1976) works across film, installation and performance to explore how history, identity and myth are constructed in Southeast Asia. Hotel Aporia, 2019, is a seminal video installation that unfolds as a relay of encounters during Japan’s interwar period. Operating at the intersection of cinema and archival history, it exemplifies the artist’s rigorous research and haunting visual language.
Ho Tzu Nyen: Hotel Aporia
5 February-31 May 2026
Haroon Mirza
Haroon Mirza (born 1977) is a British-Pakistani artist whose interdisciplinary practice fuses sound, light, electricity and found objects. Everything was, is and always will be brings together two installations and a performance that explore Mirza’s ongoing engagement with light and sound compositions generated by electrical signals, newly imagined to respond to the Fire Station’s architectural and daily landscape.
Haroon Mirza: Everything was, is and always will be
5 February-31 May 2026
Photos: Courtesy of Qatar Museums; Randhir Singh, courtesy of the artist and Dhaka Art Summit; courtesy of the artist; courtesy of artist and Barakat Contemporary
