Split across the Covered Space and Screening Room, Khalid Albaih: Khartoon! includes a range of Khalid Albaih’s political cartoons, alongside a video installation and open-access digital newspaper (accessible via the QR codes on the postcards) that marries his work as a cartoonist with a selection of his writing over the last five years (2019–2024), providing a broader contextual arc whilst drawing connections between the struggles of those in his home country, Sudan, with those in other parts of the world, from Guantanamo Bay to Palestine.

Structured chronologically, the newspaper includes five articles by Albaih: “Palestine is a glimpse of the dystopic future that awaits us” (Al Jazeera, 6 August 2024); “Stolen Homelands: Sudan’s generations of conflict, displacement, and hope” (New Arab, 5 April 2024); “How I stopped being a cartoonist and became a ‘troll’” (Al Jazeera, 13 January 2024); “Breaking the chain of indifference” (Africa is a Country, 19 May 2023); “Fear, Guilt, and Hope in Sudan” (26 April 2023); “Sudan: Hostage to Normalization” (Jadaliyya, 30 September 2020); and “We used our art to fight. Now we need it to heal us.” (Quartz, 19 June 2019). It opens with an essay by Atiyyah Khan, titled “Not All Heroes Wear Capes” (2024), that was written following a conversation with Albaih, and provides more context to his life and work.

Compiled by Albaih, edited by Milton Guillen B, and accompanied with music by Mohamed Araki, the film includes footage shot mostly by immigrants or rescuers at sea on the way to Europe from Libya, Egypt, or Turkey and uploaded on the internet. Inviting audiences to live for a few moments with these refugees at sea, Albaih writes: ‘Every minute, eight people are forced to flee war, persecution, or terror. According to the UN Refugee Agency’s report, more than 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies and rusted fishing boats this year.’

To access the newspaper, click on the link to the right.