Qatar Museums has announced the program of Rubaiya Qatar, a new four-year multidisciplinary national contemporary art exhibition that will run from November 2026 to spring 2027. The initiative is developed under the auspices of ALRIWAQ Art + Architecture, an institution dedicated to contemporary art and architecture within the Qatar Museums system, with research, exhibition, and public art activities. Designed to strengthen Qatar’s international presence and promote new generations of artists and thinkers, Rubaiya Qatar features a multifaceted program of exhibitions, commissions, public art projects, residencies and publications, organized on a four-yearly basis around a unified theme. The inaugural edition is structured around the main exhibition Unruly Waters, which is the centerpiece of the entire project.
Unruly Waters, a title that recalls the volume of the same name by environmental historian Sunil Amrith, will feature works by more than 50 contemporary artists, with more than 20 new commissions created for the occasion. The exhibition aims to explore water as an element through which to read the relationships between geography, ecology, history and human activity in a region stretching from the Gulf to East Asia. The role of Qatar within the global networks that crisscross Asia is also examined from this perspective. The exhibition will be housed at ALRIWAQ Art + Architecture and will be part of a multi-site system of activations distributed throughout the country. The curatorial project is under the direction of Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College; Ruba Katrib, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at MoMA PS1; Mark Rappolt, editor-in-chief of ArtReview and ArtReview Asia; and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa, chief curator of the Singapore Art Museum.
The invited artists come from an area marked as much by the legacy of the ancient Maritime Silk Road as by Qatar’s current demographic composition. It is a region characterized by local rootedness and a diasporic dimension, as well as an established vitality in terms of artistic research. The works address ongoing ecological transformations and contemporary geopolitical dynamics, relating these phenomena to the migratory patterns that have affected the Gulf for more than a thousand years and continue to influence its layout. The announced artists include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Sophia Al Maria, Mohamed Bourouissa, Ade Darmawan, Alia Farid, Naiza Khan, Dala Nasser, Lydia Ourahmane, Marina Tabassum and Rirkrit Tiravanija. The thematic cores of the exhibition concern the movement and transportation of people, goods and ideas, memories related to infrastructure, and perspectives of speculative futurism. The works cover a wide range of media, from painting and sculpture, moving images and storytelling, to sound and performance. Art is presented as a transnational field capable of relating different contexts and activating new connections.
Unruly Waters will also include artifacts from the collections of Qatar Museums, including objects from the wreck of the Cirebon ship, a merchant vessel dated between the late 9th and 10th centuries and recovered in 2003 in the Java Sea, Indonesia. The ship’s cargo constitutes evidence of the existence of a maritime Silk Road and early forms of globalization along the Indian Ocean. Such documentation suggests the existence of a shared cultural history predating European colonialism, governed not by national boundaries but by winds, tides and rains. The juxtaposition of historical artifacts and contemporary works aims to delineate a broad and interconnected picture of Asia, questioning the traditional divisions between West, South and East Asia.
The project is part of a multi-year research journey. Precedents include the exhibition One Tiger or Another, presented in 2022 at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and curated by Eccles and Rappolt, as well as the three-day academic conference Water Ways: Epistemologies and Aesthetics, organized in February 2024 by Qatar Museums, Rubaiya Qatar and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Alongside Unruly Waters, Rubaiya Qatar will include additional exhibitions. Our Common Currents, curated by Lina Patmali, Acting Head of Curatorial Affairs at Rubaiya Qatar, will be hosted at QM Katara Gallery. The project focuses on Qatar, where water has greatly affected the cultural and natural landscape in relation to pearl fishing, maritime trade and nomadic traditions, in dialogue with sea, coast and deserts. The exhibition extends the gaze to other contexts, tracing shared experiences between human communities and water bodies and interrogating the possibility of a sustainable future. Instead, Seething Sea, an exhibition curated by curator and art historian Wadha Al Aqeedi, will be presented at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. It brings together modern and contemporary works by Gulf artists and reflects on the region’s historical relationship with the sea, understood as a vital resource, a sphere of risk and a narrative space. Through maritime myths, rituals and cultural memories, the exhibition examines the confrontation between inherited knowledge, ecological degradation and accelerated transformations.
Rubaiya Qatar’s program will also include collaborations with Wael Shawky and Rirkrit Tiravanija, the Qatar National Library, the Sydney Biennale, and the Qatar Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2026. Inaugurations of public artworks are planned throughout the quadrennial, including works by Jitish Kallate Minerva Cuevas. Rubaiya Qatar is part of Evolution Nation, a campaign celebrating 50 years of Qatar’s cultural journey since the founding of the National Museum of Qatar and 20 years since the establishment of Qatar Museums. The initiative is curated by Qatar Creates, a national movement that aims to position the country as a global hub for art, culture and creativity. According to a statement from the institution, Rubaiya Qatar will also represent the first major program of the new phase of Qatar Museums.
“Rubaiya Qatar builds on the growth of Qatar Museums over the past two decades, aiming to reflect the country’s aspirations by positioning Doha as a hub for global art practice,” said Sheikha Reem Al Thani, deputy managing director of Qatar Museums. of ALRIWAQ Art + Architecture, Public Art and Rubaiya Qatar. “This inaugural edition of Rubaiya Qatar will promote new creative networks, support emerging artists who are pushing the boundaries of innovation, and present Doha as a platform for the exchange of cutting-edge ideas.”
"Unruly Waters positions Qatar as a meeting point between different cultures and traditions, emphasizing the nation’s past and present role as a geopolitical hub," says Sheikha Alanood Al Thani, Director of Rubaiya Qatar. “Alongside works by leading contemporary artists, the exhibition will feature exhibits from Qatar Museums’ extensive collections to propose new artistic and historical connections, highlighting how the Gulf region has been shaped as much by nature and global weather systems as by trade, commerce and culture.”
“The four-year exhibition introduces a new kind of transnational and transdisciplinary program to Doha, rooted in issues that affect both Qatar and the entire region,” says Tom Eccles. “The artists in the exhibition broadly represent the diverse nationalities living in Qatar, while their works reflect the shared geographic, environmental and social realities of today. The program builds on the ambitious expansion of the arts in Doha over the past decade and represents another milestone in the evolution of Qatar’s commitment to dialogue within the international art community.”
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| Rubaiya Qatar, quadrennial is born: more than 50 artists for Unruly Waters |
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