Bouthayna Al Muftah is a Qatari visual artist that received a Bachelor of Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts Qatar. Upon her graduation, Al Muftah directed her artistic practice to printmaking, typography and documentation, which evolved over the years into large-scale installations and performance pieces. The core inspiration behind her artistic production is her country’s cultural heritage where she borrows elements from the people of Qatar’s oral history and folklore and readapts them to reflect her relationship with her land’s past. Al Muftah’s fascination of all facets within the context of her country’s memories has led her to develop her research and reflect on life in the old neighborhoods of Qatar and the people who shaped them. As an approach to resuscitate and reconstruct past moments and memories into contemporary settings, she often finds characters and stories from these neighborhoods that transform in her own universe into the abstract figurative results seen in her work today. Al Muftah gradually turned to conceptual documentation through book-binding as a way to express the story of Qatar’s past through her eyes — immortalizing that which was previously lost in the abyss of time.