Talk

If Gathering Was an Institution

Sumayya Vally in conversation with Shumon Basar

Oula at Ibraaz, Architect-in-Residence Sumayya Vally (2025). Photo: Hugo Glendinning

Date and Time:: Sunday 30 Nov 2025, 3-4.30pm
Location:: Minassa

The work conducted by Sumayya Vally and her studio Counterspace at Ibraaz, as Architect-in-Residence, has brought together years of research on new ways of imagining cultural institutions, spaces of learning and places of gathering.

In this lecture and conversation, Vally shares the ideas behind their episodic transformation of Ibraaz’s new home at 93 Mortimer Street, a historic building redolent of the times and languages of European Empire in the heart of London. As much curatorial as architectural — summoning Beirut, Bethlehem, Milan, Johannesburg and North Africa — Counterspaces’ approach reflects an ongoing pursuit of giving architectural form to ways of being informed by transcultural identities.

Sumayya Vally is the principal of architecture and research studio, Counterspace. She is the youngest architect commissioned to design London’s Serpentine Pavilion, which explored themes of identity, community, belonging, and gathering. She was also invited to be the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, which marked a pivotal moment in reimagining the definition of Islamic art. Vally’s practice is in constant conversation with her teaching at leading architecture schools, including Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and UCL’s The Bartlett School of Architecture.

Shumon Basar has been a strategic advisor for Ibraaz, shaping the inaugural public programme, and curating Ibrahim Mahama’s installation Parliament of Ghosts (2025-26). With two decades experience in the Gulf, other roles have included Commissioner of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum; Public Programme Curator at Art Week Riyadh; Expert Advisory Group for the Royal Commission of AlUla; founding member of Fondazione Prada’s ‘Thought Council’; Co-founder at web3 startup Zien; and Public Programs Director at the Architectural Association. He is co-author of The Extreme Self and The Age of Earthquakes, both with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist, and his books on the region include With/Without and Cities from Zero. Shumon has held editorial positions at the magazines TANK, Bidoun, 032c, Flash Art, and as Curator-in-residence at Zora Zine, where he produced a trilogy of pieces around his viral neologism, ‘Lorecore’.