For a Jacket

khalid AlBaih Justin Kramer ustin Kramer collects stories. A self-confessed junk connoisseur, he spends hours trawling the internet for interesting images, from which he gains inspiration for his work. A visual artist, ALL FOR A filmmaker and mentor at the Doha Film Institute, customizing things seems to run in Kramer’s blood. Khalid Al Baih seems to be everywhere at once. Graphic designer, interior designer, political cartoonist, illustrator, activist, artist— the man defies categorization. Originally from JACKet Sudan, Al Baih moved to Qatar when he was 11 J years old and has been here ever since. “I’m kind of a local”, he grins. Nidhi Zakaria Eipe caught up So what do these two have in common? Creativity and a passion for design and it is for this simple reason that they were picked as Qatar with two of Qatar’s ambassadors ambassadors by PUMA. PUMA recently kicked off its “Built for One” T7 campaign across for the PUMA “Built for One T7 the Middle East. As part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the iconic T7 jacket, sported by legends like Pele, the Beastie Boys and campaign” to get their take on Professor Green, PUMA invited 25 ambassadors from across the Middle East—including Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, Kuwait, KSA, Bahrain and art, film, and design in Qatar UAE—to Dubai to take part in an exclusive workshop to create their own and the Middle East. customised PUMA T7s. 59 of a culture different from one’s own, and he puts it down to trust. ”It’s all about the time you put into it. You have to gain people’s trust and get to know people before they will open up to you”, he explains. “I’m very interested in human stories. But I think to do them justice; you have to be a part of them first.” Which is exactly what he did for his latest film, Zabaleen, which documents the ongoing struggles, entrepreneurial and environmental achievement of a community which collects and hand-sorts the 15,000 tonnes of domestic refuse produced by Cairo’s 17.8 million residents every day. Kramer immersed himself in the JUSTIN KRAMER beauty and chaos of Cairo, taking three years to complete filming for Kramer’s grandfather was a painter and he taught him very early on that the documentary. Zabaleen is scheduled to be released in August 2012. to make something your own, you have to add something of yourself to Nomadic by nature, Kramer still considers the farm fields of it. Most of what Kramer owns is ‘customized’ in some way. “I was the southern New Jersey, where he grew up, to be home. “My dad is a blue eleven year old stealing cans of silver spray paint and converting my collar farmer, a man of manual labor, and I never really fit into that Converse All Stars, sewing patches on to my jackets with a needle and world,” he admits, “I was always the odd one out.” It did not take him thread, drawing David Bowie lightning bolts on my eyes—whatever I long to figure out where he did fit in, though. Kramer feels he has found could think of”, he laughs. A trait that made him a natural pick for the his calling in helping others—and himself—to share stories. “It’s one of PUMA T7 design customization project. the things I feel I can most contribute to,” he says, “a continued record Originally from New Jersey, Kramer first visited Doha in 2009 to of oral history, heritage and culture in the world for generations to help run the inaugural Doha Tribeca Film Festival. When he was later come”. offered a chance to move to the city as part of the education team of the Where to from here, I ask? “I want to continue encouraging and Doha Film Institute, he couldn’t resist. At the PUMA T7 event in Dubai, empowering people in the region to make films. They are the only ones he took his role as an ambassador of Qatar seriously, wanting his work to who can tell their stories accurately. It’s really important. If they don’t be a reflection of his experiences. “I wanted to depict the iconography tell their stories, who will”? It strikes me how self-effacing Kramer is, of the region, the things that are underground,” he explains. One of often speaking as if he were one of the students instead of the teacher. the first images that he found visually arresting was people sitting, “What’s really important for me is helping people learn by example. sometimes even standing, on the top of Land Cruisers. “It’s shocking You can’t learn how to make a film by sitting in a classroom—we need to the first time you see it, but after a while, it becomes just normal, get out there, we need to do it, we need people to get their hands dirty, everyday stuff. But the rest of the world has not seen anything like it and otherwise it will be very hard for us to progress in this journey.” Perhaps those are the kinds of things I wanted to capture on the jacket.” He used he is not as far from his hands-in-the-earth roots as he imagines. traditional majlis fabrics from Qatar to add something of the country’s KHALID AL BAIH unique character into the piece. At the PUMA T7 event, Al Baih created a jacket that was inspired by Ask him about the challenges of authentically portraying the stories the Arab Spring. “It’s what we lived through in the region for the last 60 year and half and I wanted to relate this jacket to that,”he explains. He laments. Meeting with the PUMA T7 ambassadors from other Middle designed a grey camouflage jacket with the PUMA logo on one side and a Eastern countries who were all of the same generation, Al Baih noted skull wearing an army beret on the other side. On the inside of the jacket, a new spirit among the young. “Before we were all very defeatist, we he used a floral patterned material to signify Spring. didn’t know what we could do, how we could change things, if things were ever going to change or if we would have a voice,” he says, “but Al Baih credits the internet with kick starting his career. Initially his now it’s different. People are not scared anymore. They know they can work was refused at every publication he sent in to, on account of being change things and they’re proud of it.” He sees this attitude reflected in too controversial. Al Baih started his website Khartoon and posted to the regional art scene, with young artists becoming bolder and braver his Flickr, Twitter and Facebook accounts—very soon it all took off and and contributing to a new, unique paradigm that has emerged from he became a legitimate cartoonist. Though his cartoons have been the interpretation of political events. “One of the first things that blew published in Al Jazeera, The Atlantic and various other international up with the Arab Spring was the graffiti all over the walls in Libya and publications, he is characteristically modest about his achievements. “I Egypt—it was the artists who were doing things,” explains Al Baih. only exist on the internet”, he laughs, telling me about his recent trip to “Most of the activists were artists in one way or the another.” France to attend a cartoonists convention. “It was the first time in my life I was seeing other cartoonists—they were all very professional—and they Still, he is not naïve about the challenges being faced by the countries were asking me ‘Where do you publish?’ and I said ‘Wherever they take of the Arab Spring. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria are all far from my work!’” he jokes. stable, but he sees hope in the passage of time and the commitment to Al Baih currently works in multimedia, public art and exhibitions change. “Art is like a soft war zone,” he reflects. “I’m just glad to be a with the Qatar Museum Authority. He is visibly excited about the part of this generation—the generation of the Arab Spring. Everybody opportunities for young local artists, particularly in the spaces of thought we were just failures who watched MTV growing up and all we collaboration and knowledge sharing. “Qatar is working on showcasing care about is the West and fashion—but we actually changed the whole local artists everywhere. There is a lot of emphasis here on education world”. Spurred by this recognition, Al Baih has made positive change and new thought in art.”Al Baih sees fostering home-grown talent as his catch cry. “I want to do more—more illustrations, design, cartoons, a crucial step in encouraging a culture of creativity and freedom of and collaborative work. I want to change. Whatever I can do, I will do. expression in the region. “Living in Qatar and the wider region, it was I’m not going to stop. I can’t stop now.” And touched by the contagious very hard growing up being interested in art because it was never really passion and enthusiasm in his voice, you can’t help but hope that he considered a career or something you could make a living out of”, he never does. 61.

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