Nontraditional Expression | Michael Perrone x Leland Hill | 25 Years of VCUarts Qatar
We’re looking back over 25 years of VCUarts Qatar through Tasmeem Doha – one of the region’s leading and most influential design initiatives – and chatting with six VCUarts Qatar faculty members and key players who have helped make it what it is today.
In the third episode of this series, we're joined by Professors Michael Perrone and Leland Hill to discuss the idea of 'non-traditional expression'. Together, we think about Tasmeem Doha as an example of a non-traditional design event and its exciting role as a shot of creative adrenaline for everyone who attends. Leland and Michael share what they see to be the conference's core impacts on the fields of art and design and map out its legacies over the years.
In the course of the conversation, we seek to 'demystify' art and design -- questioning whether we even need to distinguish between the two. Both professors contemplate the ways that arts education has changed and what opportunities and ideas have been brought to Doha as a result of the Tasmeem conference.
Leland Hill is an Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar where he teaches typography and interdisciplinary collaborative systems design strategies. His interests also extend to how the relationship where graphic design and comic book studies come together as visual and sequential narratives. Leland is also the co-founder of the VCUarts Qatar Comics Lab, a partnership with the VCUarts Qatar Library to explore diverse narratives in comic and sequential art.
Michael Perrone is a painter, currently working as an Assistant Professor of Painting at VCUarts Qatar. He studied Art and Art Education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania. His recent work is the result of his continued research and investigation into the concept of monuments, exploring both local, regional and several international sites.
Tasmeem Doha Podcast
Each edition of the Tasmeem Doha biennial international conference is accompanied with a new season of this podcast series powered by afikra, showcasing the best people, works and efforts around the chosen theme of the event. For 2024, the theme is “Under Construction”, which is both a metaphor for creative research and a celebration and investigation of transformation.
