Biography

Designer, TEDx speaker and curator from Bahrain, with practice extending from curating community art projects to art installations. Her areas of interest are cultural identity, design culture, art collaboration and the creative process.In. 2008, she joined AGID consultants where she was mainly working on cultural design projects. Tamadher obtained her Master’s degree in Interior Design in 2010, and completed her PhD in 2019 both from Birmingham City University in the UK. In 2012, She co-founded Ulafa’a; a reconciliation through the art initiative which aims to bring Bahraini communities together through artistic practice after 2010’s political unrest.

In her doctoral research, she investigates alternative approaches to inform contemporary Islamic design pedagogy and practice. Her academic approach involves viewing curatorial practice as a disruptive form of knowledge that can include the structure and the visual experience of the written thesis. 

Tamadher is currently an Assistant Professor in the Interior Design Program at College of Engineering in University of Bahrain. She still resumes her creative work outside academia which includes curatorial, design and art projects.

My Story

It is hard to pinpoint an exact key moment when I began questioning who I am and what identity do I reflect. For me it seems like an accumulation of incidents and experiences that slowly appeared on the surface to reveal questions that I am still trying to answer today. For me, the subject of cultural identity was a personal quest for meaning before it was a professional or an academic one. Growing up in a rather conservative community, I constantly question notions of culture and religion.

As an artist, I found myself expressing these thought provoked in my work. Being a strong believer that art can express things that cannot be communicated, I find in art a salvation and a “breather” to say what I want to say in a positive and stimulating medium. Cultural conflicts and religious misconceptions in the Arab world was provoked in every work I do, I was very curious about how religion became so “selective” in the some communities, especially towards feminine issues. My frustrations first saw the light through an online Zine which took me all the way to Bangalore, India to speak about it in a TEDx conference. (see video below)

Being interested in knowing more about cultural discourse in Islamic societies took me towards the path of academic research. I felt being in education should give me the privilege of being a part of generating force of change, perhaps it is a slow force of change... 

In my doctorate journey, I investigated the possibility of reconciling traditional philosophical notions with contemporary Design Studies by using curatorial practice of collaborative sessions as methodological tool and an advocate to inform contemporary Islamic design pedagogy and practice. My path took me through various aspects, and some unexpected insights.

So here I am now; a designer/curator, an assistant professor and many things in between!