Msheireb Museums

Msheireb Museums

Transcript

00:00My name is Abdullah Al-Namah. I'm the general manager of the Msharab Museum. There are four

00:11heritage houses. We pair them into four museums. The first museum is Benjirmud House. Actually,

00:19it's the first and only museum internationally that talks about the story of slavery in the

00:24Indian Ocean World. The second museum is the Company House, where we focus on the Qarari

00:29Payoneer who worked in the establishment of the oil industry. The third museum is Mohammed bin

00:36Jasim House, which highlights the rich history of Msharab downtown Doha, and also it highlights

00:43the new architectural language that the project was built upon. The fourth museum is Radwani House.

00:50Radwani House. It's a prototype of the old Qarari House, the evolution of it through the years.

00:57The four museums are narrative-based museums, so we look at the content of those museums

01:02as a platform for dialogue and discussing current issues.

01:11If you look at the Msharab Museums and all the other cultural institutions

01:16in Qatar, they complement what Qatar are doing. You can see this diversity of offering within the

01:28cultural community in Qatar and how it's supporting the knowledge-based economy that we have.

01:34And if you talk about the technology and the use of technology, Msharab Museums being a narrative-based

01:41museum, we rely a lot on technology to present the stories that we tell. Because also that makes

01:51the content A is updatable and also relevant to the younger generation.

01:57It's very important to not only talk about history, but also to be part of the history. So to get

02:08engagements and to get people to visit cultural institutions, they should see the content of the

02:17exhibit itself and the programming and the different research relevant to them.

02:22And what I always say even to my colleagues, our job is to recruit new museum-goers.

02:36So people will visit museums, will go to exhibitions if they feel this, if they resonate with the content of

02:43those museums. So it's very important to understand what's happening around you and to spark this dialogue.

02:52either in terms of exhibitions or in different programs and research and collaborating with different

02:59education institutions.

03:04When you talk about technology, it's always about

03:08evolvement. So also cultural institutions and museum keep, has to keep evolving. In its context and

03:16in the programming and whatever they offer to the general public. So this resonates with all sectors. Once you

03:29stand still, that means you are standing still. You should keep evolving in whatever aspect or whatever

03:38career you are working.

03:48You need to understand history to see where you are going. So this is very important because of one

03:56thing that I learned through my career studying history, that history keeps repeating itself in a different form.

04:04So you need to understand history. You need to interact with your history, learn from it and

04:11to envision your next steps.