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

What the report says

At the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford, east London, artist, architect and academic Shahed Saleem is showing I Was Born Here, an exhibition built around three large tapestries that connect Muslim life in Britain with Europe’s Islamic history and present-day Islamophobia. Al Jazeera reported that the works were installed beneath a 536-year-old Islamic-inspired wooden ceiling from Torrijos, Spain, linking the setting itself to the themes of the show.

The tapestries include references to the UK Home Office’s 2013 “Hostile Environment” immigration messaging, the killing of Bangladeshi textile worker Altab Ali in 1978, and scenes from Queen’s Market in Newham, a diverse London market that Saleem said reflects migration, labour and settlement. Another work depicts hotels used to house asylum seekers, while imagery tied to Spain’s Alhambra and the voyage of Columbus is used to contrast celebrated European heritage with the violence of religious exclusion.

Saleem told Al Jazeera the exhibition responds to a climate of rising xenophobia and anti-migrant politics in the UK. The article links that context to recent gains by Reform UK and racist unrest in Belfast, while also noting continuing public debates over asylum hotels and immigration enforcement.

Visitors interviewed by Al Jazeera said the display speaks to belonging and the long presence of Muslims in Britain. The broader significance, as presented in the report, is that the show argues Muslim history is not peripheral to Europe but deeply embedded in it, and that current debates over identity and migration are part of a much longer pattern.