Dubai: One of the world’s fastest growing social media driven movements paid a visit to Dubai last week and it left behind an inspirational graffiti aimed at motivating Dubai residents to be true to themselves and follow their dreams.

The #besomebody movement’s online content reaches nearly 3 million people from over 30 countries every week.

The six week ‘Graffiti Expedition’ aims to inspire people from 15 cities, 11 countries and four continents to follow their dreams by spreading its catchphrase ‘be somebody’ via graffiti.

This week, Dubai joined the list of global cities as the only Middle East destination included in this world tour.

“Be somebody started as a personal project at a time where I wanted to challenge myself. I travelled to more than 42 countries in a period of two years for work and during this time I shared a lot of what I was seeing using the be somebody hash tag and got a decent following. I then started my own blog and started writing about what I was seeing and other people started sharing their stories as well and now I have a following of three million people,” said Founder of the movement Kash Shaikh.

Shaikh quit his job to follow his passion which is writing and to fully pursue the motivational project in the hope of inspiring others along the way to do what they love.

“Dubai was chosen because it falls in line with the movement’s goals as it is an iconic city home to passionate people. We wanted to show people a different side of Dubai away from its reputation of being a rich and elegant city. We wanted to show people that Dubai also has an art scene that nobody knows about.”

The graffiti was painted on a wall at Dubai’s Al Serkal Avenue, the drts district located in Al Quoz, by Cincinnati‐based graffiti artist Danny Gamble, the founder of Higher Level Art who single‐handedly painted each piece on the journey.

“I instantly wanted to take part in the project when Shaikh told me about its message because I understand it and I live it. Coming to Dubai after being in Africa was great because of the huge contrast between the two countries.”

Challenges

“The heat was crazy. I got heat exhaustion and almost passed out at a point because I started working from the early hours so by the afternoon I knew that I needed to rest,” said Gamble.

Gamble also stated that the graffiti he paints caters to that country’s specific location in a way that symbolises that location.

“In Dubai I used colours and effects that are luxurious and unique in order to symbolises luxury and the old world of style and craft.”

The developer and patron of the arts Abdul Monem Bin Eisa Al Serkal commended the work done by #besomebody stating: “Al Serkal Avenue has always been a home to independent projects, initiatives and ideas. #besomebody is a wonderful global movement dedicated to engaging the community and we are glad to be a part of it”

“There is something magical about the term #besomebody, it is instantly inspirational and it means different things to different people, and we want to spread this message through art, poetry and music,” said Shaikh.

More than 10 cities have already been “tagged” by the project – including US locations such as Austin, Texas and New York City, and international destinations such as Paris, Barcelona, and Casablanca. The locations have ranged from the 40‐foot-high University Co‐op building across the University of Texas campus to an iconic bus in Roma‐Condesa, the beautiful Arts Zone in Mexico City. Other sites have included schools, parks, and city centres.