A New London Art Collective Grows as an Empowering Space for Muslim Women

An Interview with the Co-Founder of the Variant Space Nasreen Shaikh Jamal Al-Lail

One of the most pressing issues in today’s society is the need for us to share our own stories. As Muslim women our voices and narratives can get misinterpreted and twisted in the mainstream media. This has further perpetuated misconceptions of who we are, where we are from and what we believe in. We are often seen as one homogenous group, our rich cultures, backgrounds and identity gets stripped away from such generalisations. To be able to tell our own stories is one of the greatest tools we can use to help our communities move forward, beyond the stereotypes. I stumbled across the Variant Space exhibition on ‘Cultural Bonds’, on a friend's Facebook page, and I immediately knew this was something that was needed in our community. The fact that it was a grassroots group, run by young female Muslim artists dedicated to reclaiming their stories, made it even more appealing and exciting.

The exhibition highlighted the diversity of cultures amongst the Muslim community, breaking stereotypes that see Muslims as one identical group. The exhibition explored the tripartite interaction between culture, faith and self. It included a diverse collective of artists from different cultural backgrounds, from East to West. Each artist brought different technical expertise to the exhibition, these included fine art, installation, photography, videography, painting, surface design and textile.

It was refreshing to see young female Muslim artists sharing their unique stories and experiences to a wider audience. By engaging with the artist’s stories the exhibition also gave me the opportunity to reflect upon my own identity, as a Muslim, and as a daughter of Pakistani migrants residing in the UK. It was just the other day when I was at work greeting one of my colleagues when he forgot my name and referred to me as “Maryam”, the only other hijabi in the office. I laughed it off and corrected him politely, but it still amazed me how he got us mixed up. At the time, I suddenly felt as though Maryam and I had become one person, despite our different cultural backgrounds, characters, and styles, we were identified solely by our hijab, rather than as different individuals. This narrow-minded perception of Muslims has to change. I believe the art of story telling in all forms, is one way that we can help facilitate meaningful dialogue in our communities, in the hopes of creating better understanding and cohesion in the globalised world we live in today.

Artists Nasreen Raja and Nasreen Shaikh Jamal Al-Lail founed Variant Space in 2014, I caught up with Nasreen Shaikh Jamal Al-Lail, at the ‘Cultural Bonds’ exhibition in East London. To find out what the inspiration behind Variant Space was and what their future plans are.

Sara Chaudhry: What was the inspiration behind creating variant space?

Nasreen Shaikh Jamal Al-Lail: What is interesting is that when you are in art school you never find someone who has similar thoughts to you. After graduating, I didn’t feel like my work could ever fit into something. I was the only Muslim in art school and I was casted as the ‘exotic’ type and not looked at for my work. My work does not talk about any of those ideas they think it is talking about. My work is very subtle in the way it is autobiographical, my art is telling a story. Me and Nasreen Raja became friends through Instagram and we found a lot of similarities between us.

When you are around someone who is creative all the time, it pushes you to do more work. We started to realise how it was problematic for us to do something with each other where we were not compromising some creative agency. Creative agency is so important because anyone can take your work and manipulate it to what they think it is. It is very important for us to tell our story behind our work. You put so much thought and intricacy towards every single detail, for that to then be misinterpreted can be really difficult to deal with.

For example, I use myself in my work, I wear the veil and so apparently my work is only about the veil and nothing else. People end up missing the person completely. I believe this is due to how institutions have trained people. I went to Westminster University in London where I studied an amazing art program, however, there was a lack of understanding when it came to presenting my work and how others dealt and looked at it. People formulated their own judgments on how Muslim women are portrayed in the media. So no matter how open-minded or academic people are, they still hold these stereotypes. It is the same with everybody’s work here in this exhibition; they are all trying to break that barrier.

Our work is not necessarily catering for the West at all, even though people think it is. Our work is showing ourselves to our wider audience because we are not trying to cater just for the West, or a Muslim audience. We are trying to express ourselves as a collective, with the hope that we can break any barriers along the way.

If you don’t tell your story no one is going to say it for you, and even if they do, they won’t do a good job of it. We want to show there is nothing holding us back.

We really need this space because it doesn’t exist. You don’t want to fit into this art industry that doesn’t cater to you as a person. It is not the place you want to belong in. Therefore, by creating this organic environment where you can belong, be an artist, experiment, and be free as much as possible is very important. This is not just for us but also everyone else around us.

Sara: What feedback have you had from people in the community?

Nasreen Shaikh Jamal Al-Lail: We have had really great feedback from everyone. Our friends and family have been so supportive throughout the process. During our launch of the exhibition there were lots people supporting us. Not just from the Muslim community but there were a mixture of people from different backgrounds and faiths. They weren’t just all gallery goers.