Exhibition on Muslim communities and migration presented in London
In London, United Kingdom, the V&A East Storehouse has presented I Was Born Here, an exhibition by artist, architect and researcher Shahed Saleem. Three large tapestries are displayed beneath a 536-year-old carved and gilded wooden ceiling from the Spanish city of Torrijos, created under the influence of Islamic art. As Al Jazeera English reports, the exhibition combines the stories of London’s Muslim communities with the centuries-long history of Islam in Europe.
Tapestries about migration and belonging
One of the works, Home Office, reproduces verbatim inscriptions from 2013 government posters linked to Britain’s “hostile environment” policy. The inscriptions urged people living in the United Kingdom without documents to leave the country or warned them of possible arrest. The phrases are woven into a composition against the backdrop of geometric Alhambra ornaments associated with medieval Islamic art in Spain.
Another tapestry is dedicated to Altab Ali, a 24-year-old textile industry worker who was killed in a racially motivated attack in a city park in 1978. The works also depict Christopher Columbus’s ship Santa Maria, whose voyage in 1492 marked the beginning of Spanish colonisation of the so-called New World.
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European history and modern London
Historian Tariq Hussain noted that the period often called the beginning of Spain’s Golden Age was accompanied by violent persecution of Jewish and Muslim communities during the Spanish Inquisition. According to him, over the following century, hundreds of thousands of European Muslims and Jews were forced to leave, convert to another faith or abandon their homes.
Another tapestry shows visitors to Queen’s Market in Newham, a publicly owned market that local residents recently tried to protect from commercial development. Saleem links his works to contemporary anti-immigration sentiment in the United Kingdom.
The title as a response to prejudice
The title I Was Born Here refers to a phrase that, according to the artist, Muslims and non-white Londoners are often forced to repeat in response to racist attacks. Visitor Imran Haque said the exhibition resonates with his family’s personal history: in the 1970s, his mother and her friends, who arrived in London from Bangladesh, bought fabrics at the same market where Saleem found materials for his works.
