AnimeQtr Event

Last week an Anime event has been held in VCUQ's atrium. The event was organized by a group of people, some were students from education city, and some others out of education city(they formed a group in FB long time before planning the event)  And I got the chance to participate in the event by selling my artworks/drawings.

The event mainly consisted of different events where people would gather and solve quizzes, play video games, or show their artwork or sell goods.

I noticed that at the event, people basically didn't know one another, yet they've interacted with each other as if they knew each other for a long time. I'm going to try to see it in a sociological way, and that these people bonded with each other without much thinking(which lead us to social interaction, a method of way people interact with one another.) They formed an in-group; group of people who share same interests(which is interest in Japanese animations and cartoons in this case.) and they're also classified as otakus(which is a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly, anime, manga, and video games.)

I think these people were acting very friendly with one another because they shared the same social status or position at that event, they all got the chance to cosplay, participate in the events there of video game tournament and some quizzes. And also as fans. They probably wouldn't have acted the same way if they were around people of different interest(I know I wouldn't) they know that not everyone is interested in anime and even some people consider anime fans "weird"(I actually heard that from a classmate just before the event started, and I became defensive, because I'm also a fan of anime, so thats the solidarity that I felt with other anime fans) and I'm going to quote what that person said to another person while talking about the event, " I've never really seen an anime fan that's normal, they all act weird."
Since I participated in this event as a person who sells their work, I got to meet different people. It was really interesting to see that even though they all share same interest, they came to me with different motivations. Some people came to talk to me about business opportunities, while some others wanted to buy my work, and some just wanted to look at what I had. Even though they shared the same interest, they were all different.

Finally, I want to say that I think the event was a really successful one, it's the first of its kind in Qatar, even though it was not sponsored it was a success alhamdulel-Allah. Plus what I also think made the event succeed was the big number of people who gathered for it (I believe more than five-hundred people visited VCUQ that day/night) I think it's just that when people share the same passion+position, things can work out very well (though people were from different ages and professions, I believe that they were considered equal that day, because they gathered as fans that day, not as professors, students, nor anything else.)
I hope that in the future, more events like this one will be held. It's really nice to see people of the same interest interact with one another.

Observing the Invisible

Qatar is a rapidly developing country; where day by day we notice a change in our surroundings. By the year 2011, 1,271,000 foreigners have been recruited in Qatar and 75%of these foreigners are unskilled labor workers. Due to this high percentage of workers, as a global society, we tend to neglect these workers and walk by them as if they are invisible. It has became a usual scene, to drive by a group of workers standing in line for the bus under the sun’s heat, to drink from a cold bottle of water when they drink out of an overused 7up bottle and no longer safe to drink from, to look out of our bedroom window while laying down and watching them sleep behind the wall. Because of the social conflict, we never stopped to think about their feelings, their families, or their problems.


During my junior year at VCUQ, one of our projects for print class relates to creating a “survival kit” for workers, we were put in teams to develop a product that would facilitate the workers. To accomplish this project, we went to tailors, gardeners, and waiters, we asked them a few questions to learn about their concerns and problems and to find a solution that would help them feel more comfortable in Qatar. The results from our interview led us to find out about the average salary and the places they spend their time on their weekends, which is for most of them, the corniche and the souq.

As a group of three, we cannot change the society’s perspective but we can open up opportunities for the workers to explore Qatar, we can teach them how to deal with the society. We looked at the workers as individuals who are willing to blend in with the society but the perception they have of locals pushes them backwards. Therefore, as a design solution, we used the visual language of the Indian culture which include the colors and illustrations. This would help them accept and trust the context because they would relate to it.

Our final package “fun weekend” is a wallet which consists of a Karwa map (which we further developed) to help them explore new areas in Qatar. The map also includes different packages as a guide on how to spend a small amount of money during a day out, as well as having fun at the same time.







This project was completed in a short period of time; therefore our research was not deep enough. This semester, we decided to complete and develop our research as an independent study group, which we are currently working on.

Our recent research has opened our eyes to how serious the worker’s problems are relating to their social status. We learned that because of the division of labor, the workers are assigned tasks which they do not know how to preform, this is a result of their language barrier and the lack of experience.



The video link at the bottom shows the living conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf where we see a pattern of problems, mostly because the workers lack education, they do not know their rights. The video also includes a story of an individual who faced financial problems and was in debt and eventually led to a horrifying ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxbpsw_UTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF97JrUej4&feature=relmfu