Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar has brought its international art and design biennial, Tasmeem Doha 2026, to a close after four days of exhibitions, talks and performances at its Education City campus. The edition, which ran from 4 to 7 November, took the theme of transmit, or hawwil in Arabic, and treated knowledge gained through creative practice as something held in trust for the benefit of all, rather than as individual expression.

The programme was shaped by a curatorial team of three VCUarts Qatar alumni, Sara Al-Afifi, Hind Al Saad and Reham Mohamed, who said they had modelled the edition on the polymaths of the Islamic world, bringing together translation, design, architecture, anthropology and archiving. Their aim, they said, was to open a dialogue rooted in lived histories and contemporary questions, with collective responsibility at its centre.

A speaker series held alongside the opening of the Design Doha Biennial 2026, where it featured as an official collateral event, was organised around two strands. One, on intergenerational knowledge, was moderated by Al-Shaima Ayoub of Qatar Museums and brought in Saudi conceptual artist Elham AlDawsari, creative director Ali Van Godil and architect Yasaman Esmaili. The other, on reframing knowledge, featured writer and educator Kameelah Janan Rasheed and Farah Hallaba, founder of the Anthropology Bel3araby Lab, with a closing keynote by the art collective Slavs and Tatars.

The biennial ended with performances by Ramallah-based electronic musician Muqata'a and Bethlehem-based interdisciplinary artist Fairouz Hasan. Its accompanying exhibition, Secrecy Is Immoral, remains on view at The Gallery at VCUarts Qatar until 3 December, presenting works that question historical narratives, power structures and cultural memory. Launched in 2004, Tasmeem Doha is the university's flagship platform for contemporary art and design discourse in the region.