Recollecting and rebuilding collective memories at 'The Majlis: A Meeting Place'

The Majlis: A Meeting Place is a multi-layered project that comprises an architectural object, an exhibition, and a public program. It explores, showcases, and embraces nomadic culture, being itself a project on the move. Its initial unveiling took place at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021 when The Majlis was installed on the grounds of the San Giorgio Maggiore Monastery. Later on, the project continued with the exhibition held at the National Museum of Qatar in 2022-2023, including the buildings of The Palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani.

The project was initiated by the Caravane Earth Foundation, which has a mission to seed, practice and promote ethical entrepreneurship and well-being through art, craft, architecture, agriculture and education. The team works towards positive systemic impact in social, cultural, and ecological realms. Their driving purpose is to empower communities by reviving local artisanship, vernacular architecture, traditional agriculture, and holistic education. The Caravane Earth Foundation has launched The Creative Residency, a catalyst for revitalisation of traditional knowledge at large.

Fahad bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah, a recognised supporter of global environmental issues and resource sustainability, an ambassador of the State of Qatar to the United Kingdom and a managing director of Caravane Earth, comments: “The residency program at Caravane Earth has four different themes. The first theme is traditional architecture and urbanism. Certain languages are lost in traditional architecture today because, for the last 80 years, all we have been doing is building with concrete or glass. The philosophy that underpins the approach to traditional architecture with historic societies is lost. Why are there certain ornaments? Why do people in this region focus on the courtyard within this culture and others focus on something else? Architecture is the footprint of any culture. Caravane Earth, as a foundation, is trying to address the revitalisation of traditional architecture and the understanding of the challenges, the obstacles that it faces. The second theme is organic regenerative agriculture and food. That's another need that we cannot go without. How much of agriculture and food has become driven by industrial processes and how much it was industrial processes that have really impacted our health? It impacted nature, the biological equilibrium that exists in society, the water system, the intensity of cropping and what kind of hormones go into it, etc. The third theme is textiles. The fourth is, creative and intellectual. My question to the creative and intellectual world is—how much of that creativity is objective? How much of it has a social, cultural, and ecological mission to it? Is it entertainment for entertainment's sake? Is it art for art's sake? Or is it there to render some kind of reality or truth or meaning to a particular situation or to society in general? These four pillars are what the residency focuses on. The residency is going to invite curators, program managers, researchers, artists, artisans, and architects to come and provide some sort of an answer to the systematic problems that we are living in.”

Majlis (مجلس) stands for a place to receive guests. It is also a word for assembly. Majlis embodies the bridge between the personal and the public. It is a public space of hospitality that preserves tradition and nurtures the sprouts of new communality.

Fahad bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah tells STIR, “The Majlis project engages the community in many ways—first, by involving them in the making of the art process, of a functional space; second—we are not asking them to compromise on their art or on their craft. We call it a meeting space. We decided to create a space for people to come and engage with, to create an exhibition while using digital media, film, etc. It all became not just a conceptual abstract idea of what crafts mean to us. People saw it happening before their eyes.”

The Majlis structure was originally built using textiles and bamboo by two teams of specialists in Colombia and Morocco. “The bamboo used for the core of the structure was harvested, measured and prepared for transportation by farmers and carpenters from Manizales, the central region of Colombia. Some textiles for The Majlis were made in Morocco from pure local wool and then woven together in different locations across the country. Others were made especially for the exhibition in Qatar, as we have been collaborating with and working to support the local tradition of Al Sadu weavers, to tell their stories and to preserve this invaluable tradition,” mentions Fahad bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah. One of the main components of The Majlis exhibition at the National Museum of Qatar was the Al Sadu weaving craft, produced by the local Qatari artisans: it featured the ancient geographic patterns that echoed colours and shapes of the desert. Al Sadu weavers produced over 360 square meters of textiles for the walls, doors, and roof of the construction as well as eight special symbolic rugs—two for each entrance.

The Majlis was surrounded by a garden, showcasing the diverse beauty of Qatar’s flora. It was designed around the idea of the oasis. The garden brought together herbs like coriander, parsley, dill, mustard and edible plants mentioned in the Quran (onion, garlic and mushroom), 20 different kinds of palms, pomegranate, olive, fig, henna trees and Sidra trees, which are known as emblematic plants of Qatar.

Al-Attiyah expands on the project, saying: “Human beings are social animals. Collective memory is part of our nature. It's that social aspect in us that we want to share memory. Majlis symbolises this space, ideas, thoughts, values, and principles that are transmitted—sometimes within the same generation, sometimes between generations. When I grew up, I was going to majlises (council spaces), places of an unspoken hierarchy, which was driven mainly by age. People who were young were quiet when the elders were talking. It taught the art of listening. Majlis is the greatest place for apprenticeship. Apprenticeship of manners, of speaking truth, chivalry, hospitality, of being kind and respectful towards the elder. We all need the physical space for values to transmit. Otherwise, they don't transmit telepathically. It cascades from one generation to the other. The exhibition in a way aims to recreate some of those spaces, to emphasise how important these intergenerational gatherings are for a society to truly believe that it can hand over values. It is a public art project with an idea that you can actually sit there, and contemplate. But it's the one that enables you to understand that this is a functional thing. At Caravane Earth we say that beauty is the operation of two principles: truth and goodness. In case you are truthful in your approach, and if you apply goodness to it—these two operations are working simultaneously and beauty is consequential. Bring truth to yourself, to the mission that you are doing, to your job.”