Ghūl

Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar) is pleased to announce its participation in the Ars Electronica Festival 2025, which will be held in Linz, Austria, from September  3–7.  

VCUarts Qatar will present Ghūl, a thoughtful and immersive exhibition that examines the systems we live within—from the technological to the economic and ecological—and how they shape our world.

Inspired by the ghūl, a shapeshifting and mischievous creature of Arabian folklore, Ghūl uses this figure as a lens to explore how constructed systems influence, ensnare, and haunt us. The exhibition invites audiences to consider how these systems reflect our values and transform our daily realities. Curated by Meriem Aiouna, Dina alkhateeb, and Chase Westfall, the exhibition frames these questions for the audience.

“In Ghūl we use folklore as a portal to examine modern systems as active forces in our lives,” said Dr. Diane Derr, Associate Dean for Research and Development at VCUarts Qatar. “This exhibition engages critical issues in a manner that is poetic, playful, and deeply reflective.”

Derr adds that this year, the Richmond campus of VCUarts is collaborating on several work Sirena Pearl, ShanMu Sun, and Stephen Vitiello contributing from the home campus.

Exhibition highlights
Ghūl brings together a diverse set of works developed by faculty, students, alumni, and collaborators across the VCUarts Qatar and Richmond campuses:

Self‑Reflexive Worlds: Ideal Home (ShanMu Sun)
An XR narrative that merges immigrant memory, generative AI, and immersive storytelling to navigate belonging and displacement.

Self‑Reflexive Worlds: Text Textures (Sirena Pearl)
A real-time installation where player movements are rendered as dynamic ASCII streams. It confronts themes of digital identity and self-surveillance.

Roto‑Riso (First-year VCUarts Qatar students)
A kinetic installation inspired by Duchamp’s Rotoreliefs and Op Art. It combines motion, printmaking, and interaction using RISO-printed spinning discs.

Food Waste Renaissance (Yasamin Shaikhi)
Biodegradable lighting objects made from rice and date byproducts. This project repositions food waste as a material for creative and sustainable design.

HydroGAN™ (Fariha Ahmed, Fatima Nazir, Alice Aslem, Selma Fejzullaj, Jood Elbeshti, Shawky Abdalla)
A satirical installation presented as a corporate campaign for AI-generated water. It critiques environmental exploitation, identity commodification, and manufactured consumer belief.

Apparitions (Ryan Browning, Sarah Khankan, Ameena Darwish, Martin Juras, Moom Thahinah, Lana Selo, Maha Alnaimi, Aljohara Almeraikhi, Fatima Al Muftah, Abdelrahman Moustafa, Nada Hijawi, Essa Al Mahmoud)
An interactive digital cave in which participants use a sculptural keyboard to summon swirling, responsive apparitions, revealing how intuition and embodiment intersect in digital spaces.

Each of these works aligns with the exhibition’s central theme: making visible the hidden forces that shape contemporary life and inviting alternative futures through engagement, critique, and play.

This transcontinental collaboration exemplifies VCUarts Qatar’s dedication to creative research that spans disciplines, cultures, and technologies.

About Creative Research at VCUarts Qatar
Creative research at VCUarts Qatar connects local and global contexts to explore pressing contemporary issues. Drawing from cultural production, material studies, emerging technologies, and heritage, the school fosters knowledge generation that contributes to social, cultural, and technological transformation within Qatar’s evolving creative landscape.

About VCUarts Qatar
VCUarts Qatar is the Qatar campus of Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Founded in 1998 in partnership with the Qatar Foundation, the institution offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Kinetic Imaging, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Painting + Printmaking; a Bachelor of Arts in Art History; and a Master of Fine Arts in Design. VCUarts Qatar is committed to advancing social and cultural development through the arts and humanities. It organizes biennial conferences such as Tasmeem Doha and the HBK Symposium on Islamic Art to foster cultural dialogue, scholarship, and community partnerships. Its mission includes fostering impactful creative practice, research, learning, and community engagement.