Muslims in the West are perpetually summoned to appear: to be counted, included, diversified, made legible. This symposium begins by asking what the demand for representation itself costs. Whether the framing comes from outside or from within, the frameworks through which Muslim experience is rendered visible tend to flatten more than they reveal. 

Bringing together artists, curators, and academics working against these conditions, the symposium treats photography as a site of refusal and reimagination, a medium uniquely placed to disrupt commercial templates, social media flatness, and the prescriptive norms that have come to stand in for Muslim life. Authenticity cannot be commissioned or institutionally sanctioned. It emerges from individual experience, lived contradiction, and the artist’s insistence on questioning the very paradigms through which they are asked to be seen.

Curated by Mohamed Somji

Mohamed Somji is a Dubai based photographer specialized in Architecture, Interiors and Editorial Photography. His commercial and editorial work is heavily influenced by the reportage style and approach that lends a unique perspective to his subjects be it interiors or editorial assignments. In addition, he runs the Seeing Things photography and video agency based in Dubai Mohamed Somji is also co-director of Gulf Photo Plus, a Dubai-based photography organization dedicated to advancing the medium of photographic expression and to being a resource for aspiring and established photographers in the region through its expansive education and arts program. Born in Tanzania and raised in Dubai, Mohamed’s passion for and interest in photography have always been for documentary projects and in his work, he aims to provide a critical commentary on social issues.

The Speakers

Rehan Jamil

Rehan Jamil is a British Pakistani social documentary photographer working with marginalised communities, with much of his work centering on British Muslims across the UK. His practice focuses on projects that explore identity, belonging, and social change. His work has been exhibited widely, including ZeroZeroZero: British Asian Cultural Provocation at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (1999), Common Ground: Aspects of Contemporary British Muslim Experience, a British Council global touring exhibition (2003), PSP: The Beautiful Script at the Dray Walk Gallery, The Old Truman Brewery (2005), East End of Islam at Rich Mix (2012), and most recently Jummah Aesthetics: British Muslim Men and Their Sartorial Choices at Oxford House, London (2024).
Recently he completed a two-year residency with Historic England, exploring the history and community of Petticoat Lane. His co-curated project This is Me, developed in collaboration with the MCP girls’ group, is on permanent display at the Young V&A.

Miriam Ali

Miriam is a photographic artist and community worker from Glasgow. Her photographic practice explores her heritage, community relations and the connection between land and people. Miriam seeks to uncover intergenerational histories and patterns of migration through the use of alternative photographic techniques, physical archives, and historical records.
Miriam graduated with a BA(hons) in Photography from City of Glasgow College and has since been working as a freelance photographer and workshop facilitator collaborating with a range of arts and community organisations including Rumpus Room, Greater Govanhill Magazine, Modus Arts and Bradford 25. She was recently appointed as a director of Bowling Green Together CIC, a thriving community green space in the Southside of Glasgow which organises events and public engagement programmes for the local community.

Shaista Chishty

Shaista is a photographer and visual artist interested in the relationship between visual histories and the present, particularly in relation to the lives of Muslims. She began her career working as a self-taught photojournalist collaborating with organisations such as UN Women, CARE International and Islamic Relief. Her work has been published and exhibited internationally, and she has been the recipient of awards for this work. However, due to concerns about the nature of the visual culture surrounding development work, Shaista embarked on an MA in Documentary Photography, leading to a transformation in her practice. Shaista is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at Cardiff University and is a recipient of a prestigious Jameel Scholarship. Shaista’s research explores the role of visuality in the discourse of islamophobia.

Mahtab Hussain

Mahtab Hussain was born and grew up in Glasgow, Scotland to immigrant parents from Azad Kashmir and Punjab, Pakistan in 1981, before relocating to Birmingham in 1987, where he suffered racist abuse growing up.

Nilupa Yasmin

Nilupa Yasmin is a Birmingham-based artist whose practice combines photography, weaving, and installation to explore identity, heritage, and belonging through her British Bengali Muslim experience.

Marwan Bassiouni

Marwan Bassiouni is an artist photographer based in Amsterdam, born in Switzerland to an Italian-American mother and an Egyptian father. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, his work has been widely exhibited and collected internationally. He is represented by Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam.

Alina Akbar

Alina Akbar is a Manchester-based visual artist working across photography, film, and installation. A Circa Prize 2024 finalist, her work has been exhibited at Manchester Museum and includes collaborations with Manchester United, Chanel, Nike, and the Manchester rap scene.

Asim Rafiqui

Asim Rafiqui is an independent photographer and writer based between Sweden and Pakistan. His practice interrogates the cultural and political dynamics of religious and contested sites, examining spaces of co-existence alongside displacement and ruin, while his writing reflects on testimony, memory, and the politics of representation.

In Conversation: Mahtab Hussain + Mohamed Somji

60 minutes — 45 mins conversation + 15 mins Q&A

An intimate two-person conversation with Mahtab Hussain, an artist whose long-running practice on British Muslim communities has consistently challenged dominant representational frames. Topics to develop in conversation: the politics of looking and being looked at; the long-form portrait as refusal; working between community and institution; what twenty years of practice have revealed about the question of representation.

In Plain Sight and Moving Beyond Hate
Shaista Chishty

Shaista Chishty’s practice examines the visual histories that shape how Muslims, and particularly Muslim women, are seen in Britain today. Working across photography and image-making, her projects — including In Plain Sight and Moving Beyond Hate — trace the long afterlives of Orientalist imagery and the ways its tropes continue to circulate through contemporary representation, news media, and the visual culture of development and humanitarian work.

Having begun her career as a photojournalist working with organisations such as UN Women, CARE International, and Islamic Relief, she came to question the representational economies she was operating within, and her practice has since shifted toward a critical, research-led interrogation of how visual archives produce and reproduce the figure of the Muslim woman. Her current PhD research at Cardiff University extends this enquiry, asking how Muslim women in Britain might respond to, refuse, and remake the historical images that continue to act upon them.

Closing Keynote
Mahmood Mamdani (Father of Zohran Mamdani)

A short, sharp closing talk to send the day off. Delivered after the social reception, this slot is for a senior voice whose work bookends the symposium’s concerns at the level of theory, politics, or history.

At Soul City Arts, we harness the power of creativity to connect communities and inspire change. Our wide-ranging program includes immersive art installations, community events that spark dialogue, and live performances that call on us to reflect on our own narratives. – using art as a force for transformation and connection.

Why has an arts organisation delivered a food market, you may wonder?  We chose to take on this challenge as we feel strongly in our communities being presented in the best form. Receiving an unprecedented response from the public, we had to bring the concept back. We are storytellers and use the arts to present in incredible ways.  Delivering Ramadan Streets, we felt would be a unique opportunity, not just to create an experience around food, but to bring people together through this cultural experience.

Click here to learn more about us 

Academic Lead - Dr. James Hodkinson

James Hodkinson is an academic and public engagement specialist, who divides his time between the UK Midlands, where he is Associate Professor at Warwick University, and Melbourne. He has been working with Mohammed Ali and Soul City Arts for a decade and is the academic lead of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.

Our Founder

Mohammed Ali is an award winning artist and curator who founded Soul City Arts in 2008. He has been a pioneer in the urban art movement, fusing street art with Islamic script and patterns, delivering powerful and moving messages. Art meets faith, identity and social change in Ali’s work, adorning the canvas of walls and public spaces. He continues to change the visual landscapes of the cities we live in. His work serves as a bridge, bringing together communities divided by culture, faith and ethnicity. In 2008 Ali established Soul City Arts as a global arts organisation based in the city of Birmingham. Together with a growing team, he has brought together artists, activists and communities, delivering the programme from an arts centre he established, aptly named ‘Port Hope’.