Made for Life

Project for: Volkswagen Middle East
Venue: Online — volkswagen-me.com + VW Middle East channels
Dates: Launched February 2023
GPP's role: Commissioner & producer

Commissioned by Partner logo

The Project

Volkswagen handed the keys to a cohort of regional photographers — and asked GPP to turn a car campaign into a body of work about life in the Gulf.

To bring its Made for Life platform to the Middle East, Volkswagen commissioned Gulf Photo Plus to do something a car campaign rarely does: step back and let regional artists tell the story.

GPP commissioned and produced a cohort of UAE- and Saudi-based photographers, each paired with a Volkswagen model, each shooting their own life in their own style — published as an online gallery and across Volkswagen Middle East's channels.

The Brief

A car campaign, without the car campaign.

Volkswagen Middle East wanted to extend its Made for Families platform into the wider community — Made for Life — with content that genuinely resonated with a regional audience, not the usual glossy product shots.

The brief to GPP was direct: commission up-and-coming regional photographers to capture the Volkswagen line-up through their own lens — supporting working creatives in the region while putting real, lived stories at the centre.

The Challenge

Make it authentic, on a brand's terms.

Hand a photographer a brand's car and the easy result is an advert. The harder, better one — the one Volkswagen actually asked for — was authentic, humanised, vibrant work that still carried the brand.

That meant choosing artists whose practice already told community stories, briefing them loosely enough to stay true to themselves and tightly enough to stay on message. Across two markets — the UAE and Saudi Arabia — and several models, every series had to feel personal and still hang together as one campaign.

Our Approach

Commission the artist, not the shot.

GPP acted as commissioner and producer. Rather than art-directing a shoot, we selected photographers whose own work matched the brief — adventure, street, portrait, documentary — and paired each with a Volkswagen model suited to their story.

We set the frame — create a series that tells a story around the car selected for you — managed every artist relationship end to end, ran production and post (down to retouching number plates), and delivered the finished work as an online virtual gallery and a content library for Volkswagen Middle East.

Through commissioning up-and-coming regional photographers to capture our line-up through their lens, we developed a series of authentic, humanized, vibrant and stimulating images underpinning the message that Volkswagen is truly Made for Life.

Anja Petrovski, Marketing Director, Volkswagen Middle East

The Commission

The artists we put behind the wheel.

Volkswagen's brief was unusual for a car brand: don't shoot the car, commission the photographer. So we did. Across the UAE and Saudi Arabia we selected artists whose own work already told community stories — adventure, street, portrait, documentary — and paired each with a Volkswagen model that suited the way they see.

Our job was to hold the campaign together while letting every artist stay themselves: briefing each to a shared idea, managing the relationships, and running production and post end to end. The result isn't an advert — it's a set of personal stories that happen to have a Volkswagen in the frame.

Ali Murad

Lebanese, UAE-based · Multidisciplinary · Tiguan

Ali Mrad is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist who takes inspiration from the sum of journeys, experiences, dreams, and the nature around him. His work spans photography, drawing and writing — all of it shaped by his surroundings.

On the road with the Tiguan

2022

Where the tarmac ends and the weekend begins.

We paired Ali with the Tiguan because his practice already lives on the road. For Made for Life he took the car on a road trip — out to nature, chasing the aesthetic of the journey itself.

The series is a weekend told from the driver's seat: distance, light, and the country seen the way Ali sees it.

Nino Consorte

Filipino, Dubai-based · Street & documentary · Golf GTI

Nino Consorte started as a lighting assistant, where he learned photography and found his eye for it. A Filipino photographer based in Dubai, he works in street and documentary — the unique perspective of being in the right place, at the right time.

The GTI in the streets of Dubai

2022

In the right place, at the right time.

Nino took the Golf GTI into the streets — and shot it the way he shoots the city: candid, kinetic, caught on the move.

The hot-hatch belongs in his frames the way any other character would — parked against a yellow wall, threading the skyline at dusk, alive in the daily bustle of Dubai.

Ushma Dhakan

Indian, Dubai-based · Portraits & lifestyle · Touareg

Ushma Dhakan is a Dubai-based photographer who has found her purpose in documenting people and their journeys. Her work is intimate and emotive, reflecting the lifestyles of the community around her.

Documenting people and journeys

2022

The car as a member of the family.

Ushma took the Touareg and turned the camera on the people and small rituals around it — the moments where a car stops being a product and becomes part of the household.

Her series is closer and quieter than a car campaign usually allows. That's exactly why we commissioned her for it.

Omar Shaheen

Palestinian, UAE-based · Digital & creative · T-Roc

Omar Sha3 is a self-taught digital visual artist from Palestine. Photography is his primary tool, which he mixes with digital painting, photo manipulation and AI. His work is saturated with colour, softness and subtle humour — since recognised by Dazed's MENA 100, with commissions for the likes of Burberry and Hugo Boss.

City in motion with the T-Roc

2022

Dubai's community, in a creative and dynamic frame.

Omar reads the T-Roc into the rhythm of the city — energetic, dreamlike, and unmistakably his.

Where other artists in the cohort slowed down, Omar leaned into colour and motion: his contribution is the campaign at its most playful.

Sami Altokhais

Saudi · Documentary & travel · Teramont

Sami Altokhais is a documentary and travel photographer based in Riyadh, and an official Fujifilm X-Photographer. Born in the US and raised between Riyadh and Colorado, he uses photography as a universal language — and has worked with Turquoise Mountain to document craft and heritage across the region.

The long way home with the Teramont

2022

A family-size car for a country-size landscape.

Sami took the Teramont across Saudi Arabia and produced the campaign's signature frame: the car on a desert highway, nose to nose with a camel.

It says the whole brief in one shot — the fleet, at home in the region, made for life here.

Norah Alamri

Saudi, Riyadh-based · Street & documentary · Touareg

Norah AlAmri is a Saudi street and documentary photographer based in Riyadh. Her practice — including the series “Black is My Colour” — is inspired by the culture and the people of Saudi Arabia, capturing everyday life so the world sees the country as she knows it.

Riyadh, changing with the Touareg

2022

A young documentarian on a country in transition.

We paired Norah with the Touareg and placed the car inside the shift she documents daily — a Riyadh seen by someone watching it become something new.

Her perspective is the campaign's most rooted in Saudi street life.

Outcomes

What it delivered.

Launched across Volkswagen Middle East's owned channels and an online virtual gallery at volkswagen-me.com (February 2023).
A cohort of regional photographers from the UAE and Saudi Arabia commissioned and paid as working creatives — the campaign's stated goal.
Selected images carried into Volkswagen showroom and marketing use across the UAE and KSA.
Picked up as a regional press story on launch.

In the Press

In the media.

Arab News

Campaign Middle East

Al Bawaba

On Social

In the feed.

From the campaign · @volkswagenme

volkswagenme

162 likes

volkswagenme Every Volkswagen car is made for more than just a drive. Here’s how six local photographers captured the ways a Volksw…

View all 3 comments

February 20, 2023

volkswagenme

390 likes

volkswagenme Luxury on wheels? The Touareg and its air suspension would agree. سيارة راقية.. أليس كذلك؟ طوارق ونظام التعليق الهوائي…

View all 9 comments

February 16, 2023

volkswagenme

371 likes

volkswagenme You have an adventurous side. So does the Tiguan. سيارة تفتح لك أبواب المغامرة. إنها تيغوان. 📸 ali3losh #volkswagenme …

View all 11 comments

February 3, 2023

volkswagenme

206 likes

volkswagenme Speeding into the weekend with the Golf GTI. 📸Nino.consorte ابدأ عطلة نهاية الأسبوع بأفضل طريقة ممكنة.. مع جولف جي تي …

View all 3 comments

December 23, 2022

volkswagenme

123 likes

volkswagenme Enjoy the ultimate crossover of form and function with the T-Roc. 📸 omarsha3 مع سيارة تي روك، استمتع بروعة التصميم الخ…

View all 9 comments

April 28, 2023

volkswagenme

106 likes

volkswagenme Here’s to the women who drive innovation and inspire change everywhere. Happy Emirati Women’s Day. 📸n_amri إلى كل النس…

View all 7 comments

August 28, 2023

Featured accounts

@ali3losh @nino.consorte @by.ushma @n_amri @samitokhais @omarsha3

Have a brand story worth handing to artists?

Gulf Photo Plus commissions and produces photography for brands and institutions — matching the right regional artists to the work, and running it from brief to delivery. If you've got a campaign that deserves more than stock, let's talk.

Start a conversation

Gulf Photo Plus — Consulting & Curation