‘The Journey of Humanity'

The Creation of ‘The Journey of Humanity’ - Sacha Jafri

In January of 2020, as Covid-19 first hit our world, I decided to try and create something that would inspire humanity to reconnect and reunite towards a better future for our children. I laid out 70 strips of cloth on the floor of the Atlantis Ballroom and started to paint, layer after layer, poured, flicked, sprayed and painted on the floor of the huge Atlantis Ballroom. The Ballroom of The Atlantis Hotel actually became my Studio as I bought huge numbers of brushes and vast gallons of paint and artist’s materials in to the space and created the largest Artist’s Studio in the world. It was here that I ideated and experimented with different marks and splashes on the strips of cloth that lay all over the floor of my new studio. I had no idea what it would be but I felt it could be something that could inspire our world during this very difficult and disconnected time.

After 4months of painting over 20hours a day, several injuries later, exhausted but still inspired, I realized that this painting could be made up of 70 parts and could potentially be as big as 5,000 Square Feet, and even more importantly it could benefit the children most in need of our help, this is when I had the idea to raise money for charities benefitting these children from the auctioning of my painting. I also decided to reach out to the children of our world asking them to send me  artwork that they had created reflecting their feelings of isolation and connection during this difficult time, I then pasted the children’s artwork to strips of cloth laying on the Ballroom floor. 

After another 2months the cloths started to take shape and images started appearing within the painted mess on the floor. At this point I felt that the 70 pieces of cloth could be joined to create one painting later on in the project and that this could maybe tell a story called ‘The Journey of Humanity’. The challenge was to find useable pieces of cloth within the huge painted mess on the floor that could be stretched and hung to create a painting that could raise significant funds for the children of our world that needed it most.

It was at that point, 7months in to the project that another came about, maybe I could keep laying down more cloth to make the painted area larger until it was so big that it could potentially become a Guinness World Record. I felt this may help in getting more attention for the project, it’s cause, and my eventual final painting. I then approached Guinness and asked them if it might be possible to set a new world record for this. Fate was on our side as Guinness explained that as this mess, currently lying on several cloths in my new studio on the ballroom floor of Atlantis, was not an actual painting as it was made of several cloths on the floor but this could become the new Guinness World Record for ‘The Largest Art Canvas in the World’. However, for this record it would need to be over 17,000 Square Feet. I then decided to go for this record with the project initiative named ‘Humanity Inspired’ where I could hold a new Guinness World Record aiming to draw attention to the project and it’s cause that might be able to inspire humanity to reconnect towards a like-minded goal of love, empathy, equality, and compassion for those most in need, during this particularly difficult time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I only had 4months left, at the most, being able to use the Atlantis Ballroom as my Art-Studio so I knew that in order to achieve the Guinness World Record I would have to get out a roller and start laying down paint on the canvas cloths as quickly as possible, joining more cloths, getting through 1000s of Brushes and 1000s of Gallons of paint, to eventually create the 17,000 square feet, but I also knew this wouldn’t end up being a useable painting for hanging, viewing, nor even for ‘A Painting’ by definition, but I still felt confident that something could be created. On 29th September 2020 I achieved the Guinness World Record for ‘The Largest Art Canvas’, a great stepping stone for my initiative ‘Humanity Inspired’, but I knew that the really hard work would now begin as I now had to somehow find enough useable pieces from my painted cloths on the floor to create a painting to be called ‘The Journey of Humanity’ that could be hung vertically on the purpose-built internal walls of The Atlantis Ballroom where we could then auction it for the charitable beneficiaries. Before I re-configured the salvageable pieces from the painted mess on the floor to create a finished painting that would be able to be hung horizontally on two huge-scale walls inside Atlantis The Palm’s Ballroom and then tell a story of the Journey of Humanity from left to right, I asked a digitally creator to re-master a digital impression of what the finished art canvas (stage one of my creation) might look like if it were stretched, rescaled, touched up and had damaged bits filled in and repaired; so people could at least get a digital impression of this enormous painted creation on the floor making the world’s largest ‘Art Canvas’ as awarded by Guinness. 

I then had the idea to invite school children in to my studio at Atlantis to paint another layer on my canvas, draw in to it, scratch in to it, dance on it, perform gymnastics and dance shows on it, play musical instruments on it (even wheel a Grand Piano on to it), and even play football on it and put on full-on concerts and live musical performances together all on top of my floor-laid canvas. This was an incredible experience that bought together so many people and their like-minded energies on my canvas, adding to the organic nature of it’s creation as well as the message of the child’s collective soul helping me to inspire humanity to reunite and reconnect towards a more conscious and compassionate world for our children.  At this point it became clearer to me that this was more about the journey and the experience of this journey, involving contributions, in as many forms, from as many children from as many countries of the world as possible, all coming together to inspire humanity; it was more about a 12month  activation ‘Humanity Inspired’ than it was about the final painting, especially as at this stage I still had no idea how the final painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’ was going to look.

The problem I faced was that well over half (around 65%) of the cloths that were laid on my

art studio floor in the Ballroom were either unusable or were too badly damaged to create a painting with, many pieces were also made up of just one block of colour which again could not be used within the final painting. So the hardest part of the project so far then began, I spent the following 3months salvaging as many pieces as I could to reach the 70x Panels needed to create ‘The Journey of Humanity’, however in order to create the best possible painting to be unveiled at Atlantis I found I could include additional pieces from the cloths that lay on my studio floor and was lucky enough to manage to find 170x Pieces to put together, stretch and then hang on four purpose built walls we designed and erected within the interior of The Atlantis The Palm Ballroom. After building these walls the exciting day finally came when we officially unveiled my final painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’ to the world, this was made up of 170 Canvases joined together and hung for the first time as one complete painting.

On March 22nd 2021 the Auction Night began, I had hung my final painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’ across two huge purpose-built walls within the Atlantis Ballroom (the 2nd and final stage of my creation) and I had hung a small image of the digital artist’s re-created artist’s impression of what I had created on the floor of the ballroom (stage 1 of my creation) next to the exit door so people could experience my stage one creation stage (the painted floor) and how that led to the final unveiled painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’, with its 170 Canvases joined together and now hung for the first time as one whole painting on the two huge interior walls of the ballroom, telling a story of humanity’s journey from left to right, with additional bespoke walk-way and viewing platform. At 7pm that evening the guests arrived and with huge anticipation the auction night then began.

We were so excited to receive a bid for the entire 170 Canvas painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’ at $62million USD. After an exhausting thirteen-month project Jan2020-March2021, this was the most incredible moment of my life, achieving something so memorable and so significant for the children of our world and for ALL humanity. I want to take this moment to thank every single person that sacrificed their time and efforts in helping to achieve this historic moment. And a special thank you goes to the successful bidder Mr. Andre Abdoune for his successful bid for what has now been described as ‘A Modern-Day Sistine Chapel’, my painting ‘The Journey of Humanity’.

Since that historic day I have carefully bubbled and stored each of the 170 Canvases ready for the happy day of the delivery of my painting to its new owner so he could hang it for all eternity, as humanity’s ultimate legacy for the world to share, in his purpose built Museum.