Doha's Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art has invited 20,000 people from across Qatar to help build a large papier-mache sculpture, in a bid for a Guinness World Records title for the most people making papier-mache at the same time. The project, called Qom'a, turns a community art activity into a national record attempt, with workshops running at the museum until 19 November.

The sculpture will be made from a bio-based papier-mache mixture prepared from reclaimed palm material and pages taken from Mathaf's old exhibition catalogues. Its name comes from the Arabic word for the small cap that joins a date to its stalk, a detail of the rutab date that the museum describes as a familiar part of Qatar's landscape. The concept was developed by school students in workshops mentored by the museum's learning and outreach team, who used the building, its history and its collection as starting points for a design built around shared experience.

Qatar's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and the Ministry of Municipality are supporting the project. Registration is open to individuals and families of all ages, abilities and backgrounds, and participants will take part in hands-on sessions to prepare and shape the mixture. Mathaf's director, Zeina Arida, said the museum wanted visitors to become part of the artwork itself, arguing that the value of the project lay as much in making it together as in the finished sculpture.

The attempt adds a participatory, record-chasing dimension to Mathaf's public programme, which this autumn also includes a major survey of the Baghdad Modern Art Group and a lecture series organised with VCUarts Qatar. For a museum whose collection holds more than 9,000 works of modern and contemporary Arab art, Qom'a shifts the focus from objects on walls to the act of making, and to whether 20,000 pairs of hands can set a world record in the process.