Signing up the very first group of labourers who will be shaking their creative bones on Restart The Art. We headed out to the Al Futtaim Carillion accommodation, interrupted dinner time, and started making new friends. 45 minutes later we had a full list of guys ready to take part in Restart The Art. 

Behind every face is a story, and these stories are what we will be showcasing as part of Restart The Art.

There will be a total of 43 labourers from two construction companies working on artwork to cover their buses for Restart The Art.

Al Futtaim Carillion accommodation, where life happens and where some of the artworks will be created.

Back at the Al Futtaim Carillion accommodation to hand out art supply packs and brief the labourers. We drew quite a crowd.

Each of the 43 labourers involved now has art supply pack with everything from sketching pencils to watercolour paints, and the clock is ticking down to January 9th when they will give us their final works. The men from Khansaheb got right into practising.

M Farooq Nasim on the left has 2 year old triplet baby girls and is one of the 43 new friends we get to make and stories we get to learn. Three faces currently working for Khansaheb on the Mall of the Emirates expansion.

Practise makes perfect. Give a man a pencil and he will draw for a day, give him a whole supply of art material and he will also probably draw for a day, but it will be more colourful.

And the film crew are still on hand to capture all the action. Well let you know when the first part of the Restart The Art film hits the internet....

What an exciting day. We picked up the first lot of artworks from the Al Futtaim Carillion crew and happened to be there when Sayen (on the left) dropped his beautiful piece off. Our second wow moment came when we were given the model bus Fiona is holding. One of the security guards at the camp had told us how much he loved to make models, so a few weeks back we had asked him if he could make a model bus for us. This little piece was waiting for us today, and it was a scale model,  crafted to the finest detail, of the bus parked outside the accommodation. And it was made from a toothpaste box. Yup! 

Under the warm morning sun & on the roof of Mall Of The Emirates the workers from Khansaheb got to meet their artists partners for the first time. It was an amazing experience as artworks, stories, hope, joys, pains, dreams & many more pieces of goodness were shared. All the questions and worries we had about how a meeting between workers and artists would go, and how successful the collaboration would be, were answered by so many awesome moments of sameness.

Gulf Photo Plus hosted the second workers & artists meet-up with the men from Al Futtaim Carillion & their artist partners. The finished artworks the men brought were amazing and the creative wheels started turning as soon as the artists sat down with them. There were a lot of people involved in this session - artists, workers, film crew, corporate volunteers, translators, and a few more, and there wasn't a single one who left without a huge smile.