Sacha Jafri, the world-renowned artist and humanitarian, will paint a new Magical Realist canvas live at the Global Skills and Education Forum (GESF) from 18-19 March 2017. The fifth annual GESF – widely known as the ‘Davos of Education’ – will be held at The Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai.  The focus of this year’s forum is how education can make ‘real’ global citizens, and Sacha Jafri will paint two 6 ft by 6 ft canvases that will visually represent global citizenship.

The canvases will be stretched and framed to create a 4 metre by 2 metre diptych which will form the centre piece of the GESF gala on Sunday evening. Distinguished guests at the gala will handprint and sign the diptych which will then be sent to Jafri’s London studio, where he will work on the painting to its completion. Jafri will then aim to collect prominent handprints and signatures from Royalty and Heads of State as well as eminent leaders in the fields of music, film, the arts, sport, literature, education and politics. He will then further work these hand-prints back into the canvas. It will be auctioned in London later in the year with proceeds raised going to the Varkey Foundation, an education charity that supports global teaching capacity around the globe.