Converse 1HUND(RED) Artist # 4 brings something completely different to the table with this collection. An industrial trained designer Umbereen Qureshi predominantly designs cars having worked on auto projects for major auto makers including various concept cars, show cars and interiors. She describes her involvement in Converse 1HUND(RED) Artists as “…a great honor. A chance to use design and the thought process behind the chosen styling to convey an important message.” Her design submission for the project features a repeated image of Africa. “The repetition of the African continent was to inspire a continual thought” she explained.” Too often we look at something that inspires a thought or feeling only to turn the page or change the channel and file the thought away in our subconscious, never to resurface again. We’re taught in school that if we want to remember something, we should constantly repeat it…the key element is the repetition.” Speaking about the role of art in humanitarian causes, she says, “I believe artists have an incredible skill to create work that can communicate something; so many different mediums with so many different voices. Sometimes it takes more than words to convey a thought, and artists have the ability to harness that universal language and use it to speak to everyone.” The universality of the AIDS epidemic, within and beyond the African continent, holds particular urgency for Umbereen. “There is no such thing as an ‘African’ crisis or any other country or ethnicity,” she says. “We’re all human beings, and when one of us suffers as a result of a global epidemic somewhere in the world, then all humanity suffers as well.”
