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🇶🇦 Qatar /Culture & Society

London art exhibition explores Muslim life, Europe’s Islamic history and Islamophobia

From Al Jazeera · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • Artist Shahed Saleem’s exhibition at the V&A East Storehouse connects London’s Muslim communities with Europe’s Islamic history through three large tapestries.
  • The works depict Home Office anti-immigration slogans, the murder of Altab Ali and the history of Muslim and Jewish persecution during the Spanish Inquisition.
  • Saleem said he created the exhibition amid rising xenophobia, including the electoral success of Reform UK and racist riots in Belfast.

Under a 536-year-old Islamic-inspired Spanish ceiling in east London, three enormous tapestries tell a story of migration, belonging and the difficult histories carried by Muslim communities.

The exhibition, I Was Born Here, is the work of artist, architect, author and academic Shahed Saleem. It was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2024 for its new Stratford site, the V&A East Storehouse. Saleem designed the exhibition in response to the local community and the six-by-six-metre carved and gilded wooden ceiling, which came from a palace in Torrijos in central Spain.

The first tapestry, Home Office, reproduces slogans used on government signs in London neighbourhoods in 2013. Phrases such as “106 ARRESTS LAST WEEK IN YOUR AREA”, “In the UK Illegally?” and “GO HOME OR FACE ARREST” appear against Alhambra patterns, connecting the language of the so-called Hostile Environment policy with Islamic geometric art rooted in medieval Spain.

A story of migration and of belonging

· Shahed SaleemSaleem described the central theme of his exhibition, I Was Born Here.

Another tapestry honours Altab Ali, a 24-year-old Bangladeshi textile worker stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in 1978. The exhibition also shows the voyage of the Santa Maria, the ship funded by the Spanish monarchy for Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage, which marked the beginning of Spain’s colonisation of the so-called New World.

Saleem places those images against the history of religious plurality in Spain and the Spanish Inquisition, which began violently targeting Jewish and Muslim communities in the 1400s. He said the work took shape as he watched racial politics intensify around migration and immigration. “While I was making the work, I was seeing the increasing racial politics, the hateful climate against … basically all people that represented migration and processes of immigration,” he told Al Jazeera. The exhibition also reflects recent xenophobia, including Reform UK’s election victories and racist riots in Belfast.

While I was making the work, I was seeing the increasing racial politics, the hateful climate against … basically all people that represented migration and processes of immigration.

· Shahed SaleemSaleem explained the political and social climate that shaped the exhibition.
About this summary

Originally published by Al Jazeera in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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