Inside Gubgub Studios, Qatar’s First Artist-Led Platform for Cross-Disciplinary Creatives

Art Basel Qatar promised a window into local art ecosystems, but few international attendees managed to truly connect with Doha’s on-the-ground art scene during the fair’s first edition. Engaging with the artists and creators who’ve chosen Doha as a base for studios, practices and research was challenging, in part, because the majority of the official programming focused on Qatar’s extraordinary museum infrastructure. Yet there are plenty of interesting grassroots, artist-led initiatives worth exploring in Doha, and these can likely provide a more genuine and direct picture—or at least another version—of what it’s like to be an artist or cultural professional in Qatar today.

One is Gubgub Studios, which offers affordable shared space for creatives across disciplines and is one of the first independent platforms of its kind in Qatar (and one of only a few in the Gulf). It grew out of informal conversations among its 13 founding members over the last decade; they began actively searching for a space in 2022. The cooperative model is built on trust, mutual respect and shared networks, and the goal is to create what the founders describe as a “living arts hub”—a space to support experimentation, collaboration and independent, artist-led programming beyond sometimes constrained institutional frameworks. It offers a solution to a key problem seldom mentioned during the spectacle that is Art Basel: namely, that real estate in Qatar is too expensive for most artists and creatives.

Gubgub Studios is located in a former warehouse in Doha’s industrial area, where the founders could fully take over the space, sharing commitment, risk and resources to create a place for peer exchange. “We’re fully self-funded at the moment, and although we have received some support from local institutions, we like to maintain our independence,” co-founder Sebastian Betancur-Montoya tells Observer. He has a background in architectural and urban thinking and brings these perspectives to his work as curator, visual artist and project manager—roles he sees as interchangeable. While most members have affiliations with institutions or universities in Qatar, he emphasizes that this self-funding model gives them the freedom to explore a wide range of content and research without external pressure.

Qatar is a small place, and its art community is likewise small, which has its pros and cons, according to Betancur-Montoya. “The backbone of any true art center is grassroots; it’s the spaces where artists, thinkers, and creatives can come together with autonomy. While we have institutions like Qatar Museums offering a year-long, busy schedule of talks, events, and exhibitions, we lack the agency that grassroots spaces provide.” Institutions like VCU, Qatar Museums, Qatar Foundation and the Film Institute have generous budgets compared to those of other institutions globally, but they are constrained by the same challenges faced by large institutions, especially government-related ones. “These institutions operate slowly and have their own agendas, much like we do. Our main goal was to create a space where we could have autonomy and develop long-term studio practices.”

With diverse practices—from printmaking to video art—the group functions more as a cooperative than a collective, sharing resources, responsibilities and expenses, rather than adhering to a single unified artistic vision. “The institutional scene here, while privileged, doesn’t offer the same freedom as spaces like ours. It’s important to have artist-led initiatives where we can curate without external constraints,” says Betancur-Montoya.

Gubgub also originated as a response to the lack of space in Qatar. “It’s very hard to find affordable space, and using space in the heart of the city is prohibitively expensive,” he adds. Yet as the industrial area and wider Doha transform, businesses are moving outward, and rents are dropping, creating a rare opportunity in the form of large, central, affordable spaces where, as has happened in other cities undergoing transformation, culture can take root, fostering creative-led urban regeneration.

It was mid-November when Betancur-Montoya reached out to say he had found a space. “We had previously looked at villas, houses, storefronts, and other options, but faced a series of legal, financial, and logistical hurdles,” he recalls. Then he came across this warehouse at a very reasonable price. “Building on past conversations and the various models we had explored, we decided to take the leap.” While the decision was recent, they had been building momentum for this move for a while, as, beyond space, the need for a place to collaborate was even more urgent when it came to international exposure.

Gubgub Studios’ opening program during Art Basel Qatar reflected this cooperative ethos. “We wanted to collaborate openly, so we worked with Mo Reda, a curator of Iranian-Iraqi background based in the Netherlands,” explains Betancur-Montoya, who co-curated the show with Reda, embracing the idea of cross-border collaboration. “It was a bit of a challenge, coordinating across time zones while being in different countries—me in Colombia, Mo in Poland and the team in Qatar—but it ended up being a beautiful experience.”

Since then, four main programs (built in cooperation with the Lebanese cultural cooperative AFLAMUNA) have taken shape. The first is “Gubgub Wrsha,” which adopts the Arabic word for “workshop or factory” to represent their core mission as a place of creation, craftsmanship and diligent work. Then there’s “Girgir,” which takes the Gulf Pidgin Arabic colloquial term meaning cacophony or nonsensical talk to allude to the multiplicity of voices they aim to host through panels, interviews and other moments of open discussion. “Gubgub Gigs” celebrates sound as an aesthetic experience, offering a range of sonic and performance acts, including vinyl sessions, live music, spoken word, performance art and acoustic and electronic improvisations. Held every two months on Saturdays, the sessions vary in duration and may include additional activities, with timing set by the performer or piece. Finally, “Gubgub Shasha” draws from the Arabic word for screen as a reference to film, describing their monthly screening series that includes narrative and experimental film as well as video art. The program has already been integrated into AFLAMUNA’s Masahat Community Cinemas Network, which focuses on the dissemination of independent Arab cinema at a community level.

The four core programs serve as a flexible framework for exploration and growth, informed by community feedback and the needs of Gubgub members. While attendance is mostly free to ensure absolute accessibility, voluntary contributions support their programming. Occasionally, programs may overlap, offering combinations like screenings with live music or lecture performances to keep things dynamic. “It’s a broad range, definitely not limited to just visual arts—it spans across various media,” Betancur-Montoya explains. Being the first grassroots space of its kind in the country, they wanted to remain open to a wide range of creative expressions. “The community here is small, and we’re friends with filmmakers and musicians, so it naturally became a place where people from all creative fields started collaborating.” Qatar’s intensely international character, he notes, creates the conditions for an extremely fertile multicultural exchange, drawing in creative people from various countries active in different disciplines. Gubgub Studios aims to be the independent platform to amplify this.

The group is composed of roughly half locals and half members from the Global South, with only one European member. Many have lived in Doha for a while and are well-connected through personal networks, social media and professional ties in other regions. Some members have also worked internationally, contributing to the collective’s diverse, global perspective and the shared international network they can now draw on.

While Qatar has been promoting investments in art and culture to attract creatives and intellectuals of all kinds, significant challenges remain. The country lacks an established ecosystem where all artists can have their work shown—institutions like Qatar Museums and the Film Institute, while helpful, operate with top-down structures, and there is no space to show everyone, particularly once you’ve already shown there once, notes Yousef Bahzad, an American-Qatari artist and founding member. “Doha has always been this, I don’t want to say a ‘love-hate’ relationship, but it’s very much a push and pull,” he says. “There are periods of drought, honestly, in your practice, where you feel like there’s no engagement with your work, no visibility. I was born here, but I’ve never shown my work in Doha. The only two times I’ve shown my work were at Sebastian’s most recent shows; I’m always working abroad otherwise.”

The problem, as he sees it, is that talent is starting to concentrate, but there’s a gap in platforms to showcase it. Yet it’s exactly that vacuum, Bahzad acknowledges, that creates an opportunity: seeing this gap in the local art scene, it became clear that there’s room to build something new. The collective regards itself as a byproduct of the efforts and funding Qatar Museums has invested over the years. Without opportunities like the Fire Station residency or exposure through local festivals and events, they would never have had the courage to create such an initiative, let alone pursue their creative careers.

Art in Qatar is still evolving, particularly within the context of Western modernist traditions, but other forms of creative expression, such as music and hospitality, are gaining ground. Gubgub Studios will launch residency programs next fall, including one focused on exploring local coffee and tea practices, as part of its effort to expand the definition of art and foster collaboration with other organizations and figures within Qatar’s and the region’s broader cultural and creative industries.

Titled “Gubgub Ghorfa,” the upcoming residencies take their name from the Arabic word for “room,” reflecting the collective’s commitment to hospitality and cultural exchange. The idea is to offer a flexible residency program that fosters collaboration across diverse fields, including visual arts, food, publishing and social practices. The residencies will pair Gubgub artists with external practitioners based on shared research interests, creating an exchange where the local artist hosts the guest, deepening connections with the community and resources. All programs are funded through grants and partnerships with other institutions as the collective continues to build connections within the region’s growing art ecosystem and beyond.

In this sense, Gubgub Studios already offers an interesting and worth-watching case study of how a cross-disciplinary community of creators is exploring alternative models to support independent, self-funded artistic production and experimentation—free from institutional constraints and deadlines, as well as from any commercial obligations or influence.

Qatar, with its evolving cultural landscape, is exploring alternative models to the traditional public and private patronage systems that have long dominated the art market—models that are here specifically tied to political agendas, placing art and culture at the core of broader development strategies, often with a long-term perspective. In this context, Qatar presents an ideal platform for experimenting with new grassroots approaches, where artists and collectives like Gubgub can find their footing even within such an environment.

At the same time, as the group notes, Qatar’s small size paired with its high cultural ambitions creates a unique environment where the art scene feels more intimate and accessible than elsewhere. “As a mid-career curator, I’ve had the opportunity to work and attend lectures and masterclasses, and develop relationships with really well-established people,” Betancur-Montoya says, clarifying that it’s not only about the experts who come to visit, but also about being in a small, community-focused place. “It’s fairly easy to attend an event where someone with no connection to the institutions—an ex-artist, for instance—might attend a talk at the Fire Station auditorium and do that type of key networking that can be crucial in advancing their career and getting exposure.”

The group is optimistic: an exciting shift is underway in Qatar’s art scene, and Art Basel has been accelerating the momentum. The collective’s space was launched quickly to coincide with Art Basel, both to make a statement and to mark a milestone. While the launch felt rushed, it was seen as an essential step toward establishing their presence. “It was a huge rush. It was all hands on deck, and we started figuring out whether we were ready because it was a statement and a milestone to work towards. We had Open Studios, a show, a party—a little bit of everything up front. It was actually really fun,” Betancur-Montoya shares, acknowledging that the next edition will come fast and they’re already preparing for it.

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