Filming across the Middle East for Global People Project has just been completed.

Over 100 interviews from Qatar, Oman, Jordan and Lebanon will shortly be a part of the Thought Map. They are currently being translated.

This production was made possible by:

NABIL GABER. Nabil produced and conducted the first interviews shot in Doha.

HAMIDA ISSA AL KUWARI. Hamida produced and conducted the second group of interviews in Doha.

AZMI ABU-JALALA.Azmi conducted the Doha majlis interview and is translating Doha interviews.

SCANDAR COPTI.A warm thanks to Scandar for helping at the Doha Film Institute for being sucha great help with filmmakers in Doha and the Middle East.

ALIA RASHEED. Alia produced and conducted the interviews in Muscat.

SAMI JAFFER. Sami produced the interviews in Muscat.

RULA NASSER. Rula produced and conducted the interviews in Amman and its surrounds and Wadi Rum.

QABAA. Qabaa made the Bedouin interviews in Wadi Musa both possible and plentiful.

ROWINA BOU HARB. Rowina produced and conducted the interviews in Beirut and is helping with the Lebanon translations.

NANCY AZOURY & NICOLAS KHABBAZ. Nancy & Nicolas co-ordinated the Beirut and Mount Lebanon teams and Nacy is helping with the Lebanon translations.

NANCY ISAAC. Nancy helped set up several interviews and recorded sound in Beirut.

NAJI BECHARA. Naji produced and conducted the Mount Lebanon interviews.

KHADIJA HAMZEH.Khadija produced and conducted the Deir Ntar interviews in south Lebanon. Thanks Also to Khadija’s brother Mohamad for introducing Khadija to the project.

STEVEN & GEORGE CHALOUHI. A warm thank you to Steven for such kind help in introducing the project to people in Lebanon and to George for introducing Steven.

When the sun goes down, the Qatar sky lights up.

Flourescent patterns fill the night sky.

Each roof top  a unique dome reaching into the crane filled air.

Summer in the Souq is hot!

The top average temperatures in Qatar peaks at around 41 Celsius in June and July. In the sun in the middle of the day when temperatures can reach or pass 50 degrees Celsius.

Many of Doha’s inhabitants think that adding a permanent covering or installing air conditioning in the the Souq Waqif would make it loose it’s character and effect the atmosphere.

The solution? Ingenious ventilators fill the central cafe areas. They spray out a fine, cool mist on the gatherings of people drinking tea, enjoying shishas and taking in the atmosphere.

The Bird and Animal Market features an array of rainbow coloured birds. But not in the way that you would expect. Many of the birds are dyed fantastic neon colours; hot pinks, bright yellows and luminous limes! No-one was able to explain why the birds are dyed these colours but they attract the eyes of all the children who visit the market .

In the beginning, when Doha was a village, where people came to the Wadi to buy and sell wares included meat, milk and wool.

The Bedouin market grew. Alleyways wove together forming a labyrinth where traders sold their wares.

Herbs and spices were stacked high in glass jars and bespoke perfumes were mixed from the contents of hundreds of small bottles. Frankinsense traders sold incenses ‘oud’, a sweet smelling agar wood, burnt in houses for hospitality. Swords, daggers and large cooking pots all passed hands.

Garry Namponan was born at the Presbyterian mission at Aurukun, on the western coast of Cape York Peninsula. His clan is Apalech and his language groups are Wik-Alkan on his Father’s side and Wik-Ngathan on his Mother’s side.

His traditional homelands are south of Aurukun: Aayk, Kirk River and Cape Keer-Weer, which is the location of his family home. Namponan works across a range of media including sculpture, printmaking, book illustration and painting.

Dick Watkins was born in 1937 in Sydney, Australia. He is a pioneer of abstract painting in Australia. His works declare the act of painting rather than the skill of observation that was prized in older painting traditions.

As an artist, Dick Watkins is largely self-taught. In 1989 the Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery celebrated Watkins’ significant contribution to Australian art with a major retrospective exhibition and in 1993 the National Gallery of Australia mounted the exhibition Dick Watkins in context: an exhibition from the collection of the National Gallery. His work is featured in the Australia Season at the British Museum.

The British Museum in London are running an Australia season. It includes a specially commissioned space presenting Australian biodiversity in the Museum’s forecourt, in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an exhibition of modern Australian works, most of which have never been seen in public before, and a display of beautifully handcrafted baskets, created by Indigenous Australians.

Mark’s affinity with the ocean has taken him around Australia, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, and the length of North America’s West Coast to Alaska. The ocean is in his blood – his brother’s a marine biologist and his father was a nomadic surfer who, like the rest of the family, has always lived next to the ocean. Photography was a way to structure the random travel, to give his journeys a goal. It was a frustration with “stock-standard surf shots” that led to Escape – and, eventually, The Underwater Project.

The images portray a stillness that betrays the violent energy of the situation, but that tap into one of Tipple’s original – and unpredictable – inspirations for the project: war photography. “I wanted to focus on the same raw emotion as the conflict photographs I had seen, to capture genuine expression; to see people being real. Usually, the camera’s presence gets in the way, people don’t forget the camera, they pose and feel self-conscious. However, over time or through a greater elemental presence than the camera, genuine emotion is unveiled, and poses are stripped away.”

The struggle for survival underwater is a way to break down this formality, a catalyst for breaking down social inhibitions. “Underwater, people are concentrating on survival – the camera is the last thing on their mind, and real emotions are revealed without trappings.” “I didn’t know anything about these swimmers and suddenly I was seeing raw emotion, a struggle. The same wave can be beautiful and perfect and in a split second it can switch to end-of-the-world Armageddon-style violence.”

Hana Sake brewers effected by the earthquake urge people to enjoy the Cherry Blossom season and drink Sake, despite the climate of self retraint.

Kosuke Kuji, the owner of the celebrated Nanbu Bijin brewery in Iwate, says that canceling parties and eschewing the seasonal festivities would spark, “a second wave of economic damage” in his industry