Qatar Museums and GU-Q launch Lusail Museum Conversations series

Doha, Qatar: Qatar Museums, in collaboration with Georgetown University in Qatar (GU Q), yesterday launched the Lusail Museum Conversations, and the f...

Doha, Qatar: Qatar Museums, in collaboration with Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), yesterday launched the Lusail Museum Conversations, and the first season of the series will explore lesser-known stories from the late Ottoman period and how they shaped the modern Middle East region.

The event held at the GU-Q also marked the public launch of the upcoming Lusail Museum’s academic arm, Lusail Institute, an advanced research centre that produces knowledge to nourish the museum.

Lusail Museum Conversations Season 1, titled ‘The Late Ottoman World: At the Roots of the Modern Middle East,’ will be through April 2026 and host five in-depth talks focusing on 19th-century debates around power, art and identity that remain relevant today. Across the season, audiences will revisit the late Ottoman world as a period of cultural experimentation, focusing on representation, identity, and cross-cultural exchange.

The collaborative initiative between GU-Q and Qatar Museums is curated by Director of the Lusail Institute Professor Alain Fouad George, who is also a GU-Q Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, as well as I.M. Pei Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of Oxford.

“It’s my real pleasure to inaugurate the conversations, which also mark the public launch of the Lusail Institute. Lusail Institute is the research arm of Lusail Museum. It’s a new institution that’s being created by Qatar Museums, under the leadership of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani,” said Professor George.