Director of the Lusail Institute Professor Alain Fouad George
Doha, Qatar: The newly launched Lusail Institute, the academic arm of the upcoming Lusail Museum, aims to generate advanced research in history and art while contributing to global cultural dialogue, positioning itself as an international research centre dedicated to producing original scholarship supported by a global network of collaborators.
Speaking to The Peninsula recently, Director of the Lusail Institute Professor Alain Fouad George said that the initiative has been in development for more than a year and a half.
“We have a team within Lusail Museum that is creating this new structure,” he said.
“The most important collaboration is with Georgetown University in Qatar. We also have a collaboration with Oxford University, and we are developing a further network of partnerships,” said Prof George.
Beyond research, the Lusail Institute also seeks to position itself as a cultural forum, encouraging intellectual exchange and future-oriented thinking.
“We have the ambition to be a cultural voice, a forum that allows thinkers to imagine the future. We use the past as the basis on which to create the future as well,” he said.
The institute’s research agenda will closely follow the scope and needs of the upcoming Lusail Museum’s collections, which focus on the European representation of the Orient.
“Our collection is complex because it reflects the European gaze on what they called the Orient. We want to support the museum through focused research,” Prof George said.
Key areas of study will include Orientalist painting, the late Ottoman period, the Indian Ocean world, and the life and legacy of Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, the founder of modern Qatar, who lived in Lusail and will be honoured within the museum.
Lusail Museum, set to open in 2029, houses one of the world’s largest collections of Orientalist paintings, alongside works in other media such as prints and decorative arts. The museum also features significant holdings in early photography, as well as fashion, film and related visual media.
With the establishment of the Lusail Institute, Lusail Museum strengthens its role not only as a custodian of art, but also as a centre for research, critical reflection and international scholarly collaboration.
The recently launched first season of the Lusail Museum Conversations, curated by Prof George, will bring the best speakers to Doha to cover a range of histories within this world of the late Ottomans, until April 2026.
“In the upcoming weeks, Lusail Museum Conversations will focus on Tunisia and the way that Tunisia deals with both the Ottoman and the French at the same time. We’ll also explore the role of women as artists in the Ottoman Empire, examine the heritage of the modern Middle East through film, and highlight Arab Ottomans who were members of the imperial elite from Greater Syria, offering the public different perspectives on this rich and complex historical world,” Prof George said.
