Qatar America Institute for Culture opens IMPART Artist Grantee Exhibition Exploring the Intersection Between Sustainability and the Arts

Hoesy Corona, Nura Dhar and Roger Mokbel exhibit new work highlighting climate migration, human interventions in the natural environment, and the relationship between tradition and labor

May 15 – August 11, 2023

WASHINGTON, June 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — The Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) is pleased to present an exhibition featuring the winners of its 2022 IMPART Artist Grant. The exhibition features new work by interdisciplinary Hoesy Corona, designer Nura Dhar and photographer Roger Mokbel, the three selected winners of the annual grant program.

Connecting creatives and artist empowerment are central tenets of QAIC’s philosophy. The IMPART Artist Grant program provides a cash prize and exhibition opportunity to emerging and mid-career artists to support the creation of a new body of work. Now in its third year, each cycle of the grant invites artists to respond to a prompt related to an annual theme. In 2022, QAIC’s programs and exhibitions explored the relationship between sustainability and the arts.

These artists, who each won this grant, responded to the open call last fall and were selected by a jury of former QAIC partners and exhibiting artists. Through different mediums, including drawing, photography and mixed-media installation, the artists address issues such as climate migration, human interventions in the natural environment and the relationship between tradition and labor. Their work reflects the places each artist has a connection, Kashmir, Lebanon and Mexico, while speaking to broader, global challenges. Corona, Dhar and Mokbel illustrate the diverse ways artists shed light on and document such challenges through their work. 

This exhibition is open to the public from 5:00 to 8:00 PM during the Dupont Circle BID’s First Friday Artwalk and by appointment. To schedule a visit and view selected works featured in the exhibition, visit qataramerica.org. Related public programs to be announced. 

About the Artists

Hoesy Corona
Hoesy Corona (based in the U.S.) is a Queer Latinx artist creating uncategorized and multidisciplinary art spanning installation, performance and sculpture. His latest installation, Terrestrial Caravan (2022) at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD is on view through August 2023. He is a 2022-2023 Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center Public Humanities Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University’s Sheridan Libraries. Hoesy has exhibited widely in galleries, museums and public spaces in the United States and internationally, including recent solo exhibitions All Roads Lead to Roam (2023) at Eric Dean Gallery at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN; Sunset Moonlight (2021) at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD; and Alien Nation (2017), at The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden presented by Transformer in Washington, DC. Hoesy is a former Taf Fellow 2019-2020 in Tulsa, OK and a Halcyon Arts Lab Fellow 2017-2018 in Washington, DC. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including The Nicholson Project artist residency, The Mellon Foundation’s MAP Fund Grant and the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Grit Fund Grant. His work has been reviewed by The Washington Post, Bmore Art Magazine, and The American Scholar among others. In 2022 he was named the inaugural Restoring Hope, Restoring Trust Artist in Residence 2023 at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. He is a current resident artist at The Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD.

Nura Dhar
Nura Dhar is a junior in the competitive five-year combined undergraduate dual degree program at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where she studies apparel design. Her passion for design is fueled by her experiences in which objects of traditional craftsmanship serve as vehicles which convey culture, politics, social rites and communities.

Roger Mokbel
Originally a biotechnology engineer, Roger Mokbel established himself as a self-taught Lebanese photographer by using his visual works as a plea for social justice. His work explores the intersection between the personal and the collective. Always socially engaged, he is fascinated in studying the multiple layers through which a topic can be approached. In his storytelling projects, he has often used human psychology as a point of entry to address societal and environmental concerns. His first project, Describe the sky to me, was selected by the Arab Documentary Photography Program in 2018 and received the Photography Prize by the Boghossian Foundation in 2019. His second project, ‘And then, they just left,‘ was exhibited at the Festival International des Arts de Bordeaux in 2021 and in Madrid as part of the official selection of PhotoEspaña 2022. He is a member of Collectif 1200, a collective of Lebanese photographers and visual artists.

About QAIC
The Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC) is a Washington, D.C.-based independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that creates, curates and executes programs and research that amplify the prominence of all forms of art and culture from the United States, Qatar and the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. To learn more about QAIC, please visit qataramerica.org.

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SOURCE Qatar America Institute for Culture (QAIC)