Mathqaf is dedicated to championing art from West Asia and North Africa through documenting artists’ lives and institutional histories. In addition to looking at the region through historical lenses, a significant part of our mission is to present and support the various forms of contemporary creation in the region. The historical and the contemporary perspectives support and complement each other in our quest for documenting regional artistic and institutional practices. 

To delve more into the contemporary, we have launched a new series titled Watch This Artist. This feature presents to you artists and creatives from the region, working in a multitude of fields, ranging from fine arts to music and from film to design. The underlying purpose of this series is to give artists agency and put them on the forefront as advocates and witnesses of the everyday. Art and creativity play a major role in instigating dialogue, discourse, and debate. Mathqaf is conceived as a space for art and culture to inspire and instigate conversations and promote scholarship, as well as offer resources of the history of modern and contemporary art from West Asia and North Africa. 

We are proud of the overwhelming response from our community of artists and creatives on this initiative. If you would like to present your work through this series, please email us at hello@oldsite.mathqaf.com by 15 March 2021.