UK art show explores Muslim life, Europe’s Islamic history and Islamophobia

London, United Kingdom – Underneath a 536-year-old Islamic-inspired Spanish roof in east London hang three tapestries linking the city’s Muslim communities to Europe’s longstanding Muslim histories.

Among the works by artist Shahed Saleem, signs from the British Home Office’s 2013 “ Hostile Environment ” policy, urging undocumented immigrants to self-deport, are depicted along with images of Muslim shoppers in London’s diverse Queen’s Market and a portrait of Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi man who was murdered in a city park in a racially motivated attack.

The collection, entitled I Was Born Here, is “a story of migration and of belonging”, said Saleem, who is also an architect, author and academic.

Sitting on pillows beneath the ceiling, he invited onlookers to view and discuss his exhibition.

Saleem contextualised the works against rising xenophobia, seen recently during the election wins of Reform UK, an anti-immigrant party, and racist riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“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,” Saleem told Al Jazeera.

He was approached by the Victoria and Albert Museum team in 2024 to create an exhibit for their new Stratford location, the V&A East Storehouse, which responded to the local community and culture, and to the Torrijos ceiling. The elaborate carved and gilded wooden ceiling, which measures 6 by 6 metres (20 x 20 feet), originated from a palace in the central Spanish town of Torrijos.

What followed was hundreds of hours of building three enormous tapestries.