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

In a country defined by institutional ambition, a new self-funded arts cooperative in Doha is betting on smaller-scale creative autonomy.

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.

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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,........

© Observer