BY RAYNALD C RIVERA
DOHA: Katara Cultural Village yesterday concluded ‘Colour Your Summer’, a first-of-its-kind initiative that provided young children spending summer break in Qatar a chance to acquire art skills.
“This was the first time Katara organised the event. Our target was students who did not travel abroad this summer,” Malika Al Shraim, Public Relations and Communications Manager, Katara Cultural Village, told this daily yesterday.
Some 30 Qatari children aged 8-15 took part in workshops and received certificates of participation at a culminating event at Katara yesterday.
“We will open the programme to non-Qataris in the future. We had it only for Qataris this time to see the success of the workshops as we were doing it in summertime.
“Hopefully, we will have it in a bigger scale in the coming year,” said Al Shraim.
The workshops lasted eight days, delving into aspects of art education. “Education has been a vital component of Katara’s programme as art is crucial to learning as with other fields like sport, music and literature. It is equally important to hone art skills of children for the future,” she said.
The programme offered opportunity for young learners to acquire skills at multi-pronged workshops on elements of art.
“The programme provided workshops on fine art, handicraft, origami, cupcake decoration and other activities,” Al Shraim said, adding activities are being planned to be included in the future edition of the programme.
Islamic art T-shirt decoration, porcelain workshop, paper folding, plaster moulding, practical photography, paper mache, three-dimension works, making and decorating cookies and cupcakes, making huts and colouring plaster works were among activities of the programme at Katara Art Studios.
Apart from teaching basic art skills, the programme also instilled values such as environment protection with the use of recycled materials at some workshops.
It departed from conventional art forms with a workshop on cup cake and cookie decoration which fused food and art. A workshop on Islamic art T-shirt design offered a popular medium to appreciate centuries-old abstract designs usually seen in architectural decoration in old palaces, walls and facades.
An exhibition of students’ outputs was held at the concluding event, attended by participants, parents, Katara officials and the media.
THE PENINSULA
