[Music]
so I’m going to start by showing you
some images of my work and some feedback
I’ve had over the years
can you leave out the menstrual blood
now this is a painting I made called
matric with prides and as you can see
people are crowded around looking
shocked and appalled by the menstrual
blood if there was no menstrual blood
they’ll just be looking shocked and
appalled for no reason thanks for the
feedback mum that’s just unnatural as
you can see here they are referring to
my completely natural armpit hair which
took me three months to grow fun fact if
you think it’s okay to be a Muslim live
a westernized life and rely on being a
good person you are wrong you will burn
in hell now this person was referring to
a number of images that I’ve made for
example this one which is called white
girl and this one self-portrait with
melons I will look for you I will find
you and I will kill you some of the more
observant here today may have noticed
that was actually quite from the film
taken but I did get similar comments on
my work and I will come back to that in
a minute
so this work didn’t just come out of
nowhere it came through from a
breakthrough moment that I had when I
was at art school I made a work where I
thought yes this is the kind of artist
that I want to be so when your article
you have to do these terrifying crit
sessions where as a group you go around
and you show your work and you give
feedback in everything to your
classmates and on this particular
occasion I noticed there was a pattern
emerging I noticed every time the men
got up to speak it seemed like we
automatically kind of respected them and
we really listened to them and when the
women got up to speak we were so much
harder on them I said it’s more
dismissive of them and I was complicit
in that and we were all complicit in
that
and so when I was driving home late I
was thinking about it snow I was
thinking how we kind of had this sort of
unconscious positive bias towards the
men and it was the first time in my life
I really realized that I might be held
back because of my gender and it wasn’t
that I was a feminist I didn’t even know
what feminism was it was just a feeling
that I had that something wasn’t quite
right so I was driving home was getting
really annoyed and thinking oh I wish I
was a man if I was a man people would
take the things I have to say so much
more seriously and then this work kind
of came into my head it says I wish I
had a penis
because then I’d you then steal
your job and this highly amused me so
the next crit session that we had I
plucked up the courage to show my tutor
in class makes this image up until this
point I had literally just been doing
pictures of me rain berries so they were
not expecting this so when I showed them
they were like ah you can’t say this you
can’t talk about this we don’t need
feminism what do you mean and I realized
they were talking like this because I
attached on something they did not want
to think about something they’d happily
parked in the back of their minds
I had unwittingly exposed that things
that was my breakthrough and I thought
at this point I have to say I’d always
felt pretty powerless I had a lot to say
but a lot of issues but I didn’t know
how to express it or how to make sense
of it when I made this work it gave me
the power arts gave me a voice and as we
all know there are so many unequal
things in society and it’s almost like
we’ve kind of gotten used to some of
those things and that’s not our fault
and I realized I could use art to call
out those things and maybe I could be
part of a movement to change things I
could use art to say the unsayable so
what happens when you do that this is a
picture that I made in 2008
it’s called Haram and I’d like you to
raise your hands if you find this image
offensive
okay so I’ll be honest I was unsure
whether to show this image because I
know it’s a difficult one and I know
that if I’ve seen it I think I’ll
probably be offended by it so let me
tell you a little bit more about this my
mother is a Muslim she was born in Kenya
and she married my non-muslim British
father she raised me and my siblings as
Muslims any spawn and sent us to a
Catholic school so a lot of my work is
about that duality my upbringing and the
conflicts of identity amongst young
British Muslims for those of you who
don’t know eating pork is prohibited in
the Koran and as a result of that for
many Muslims pigs are an offensive
things and I would say most Muslims who
break the odd rule here and there would
still not break that rule because it’s
such a taboo and for me growing up pigs
almost kind of became a symbol of the
other of someone who was different to me
but when I got older I realized that
other is me as I’m a mix of various
British Muslims living in the Western
world and how does that parallel other
British Muslims who may be feeling
conflicts of identity and on a personal
level I have to say the work was a
deeply personal work for me looking at
my upbringing and all the things that
I’d experienced and it means a lot to me
so it’s quite hard to summarize it in
this talk but I will summarize its the
idea was to bring these two things
together to ask the question how can we
embrace these two cultures so exhibited
this work in 2008 in London during the
show I get a phone call with telling me
I need to come to the gallery right away
because someone had thrown a brick
through the gallery window the press got
hold of this story and it went crazy the
reason behind me making it had just
gotten completely lost and it was all
over the news I tried to keep it from my
friends and family but it just wasn’t
possible it got more serious when I
started receiving death threats towards
me and my family
when the police came one of them said to
me you knew this would happen
you should never have
it now thank you for the feedback
officer greatly appreciated I knew I was
doing something provocative but I was
taking a risk
I thought the risk was worth taking to
say the thing I felt needed to be said
now disclaimer I am NOT comparing myself
to and he please people but imagine if
he was right imagine if we applied that
school of thoughts revolutionaries
throughout history if they avoided doing
something that may offend people what he
was saying in fact was be quiet which is
something a lot more serious so I have a
confession to make I recently signed a
petition to stop somebody from speaking
in the UK I think it was like an
anti-feminist speaker or something after
I signed it I thought what have I done
because that completely contradicts
everything that I stand for as an artist
because even if I disagree with that
person they have the right to speak this
is what got me thinking about the
silencing of artists and activists in my
work as we hear now more and more people
on social media for example here are
being trolled consistently online as
well this is a way to silence their
voices sorry mmm this is a way to
silence their voices a lot of these
activists actually said that they have
stopped their work altogether and they
began to self-censor I can relate to
this
I had always maintained that I was
strong and I would never give in to any
abuse and I would always make
controversial work
I made my haram painting in 2008 I
realized I had not touched on Islam
again in my work since that I’d always
said I was strong and I would I would
never I would never give in to abuse and
that’s I didn’t need to talk about that
subject anymore but how could I not need
to talk about that anymore Islam is at
the very core of my identity it’s
incredulous when I think that I didn’t
need to discuss that any
the truth was they had one I’ve been
self-censoring
and I just hadn’t realized it but don’t
food to story of me because I was still
annoying people work just about
something else and I have to say this is
the piece that annoys people the most
and I’m not sorry about that one bit
people always say to me I know you don’t
mean to offend and you want to provoke
anyone but the thing is I do I don’t
think you should provoke anyone just for
the sake of it there’s no point in that
but I think provocation can be used in a
clever way and it can be used to make us
think and that is the point of arts that
is why I do what I do I recently saw a
discussion where someone said you can
have freedom of speech but there are
limits but I think that conversation is
a complete non-starter because an order
of freedom of speech to be a thing there
can be no limits if there are limits
there isn’t it freedom of speech or with
no freedom of speech we cannot progress
as a society I always think we’re so
lucky in this country we technically we
can say what we wants and and we can be
who we want to be but that’s certainly
not the way it is all over the world we
have a great gift and we need to use it
I don’t have the answers I’m afraid I
simply make the work and leave it up
there for you to discuss I think we need
to be challenged we need to hear
challenging radical provocative things
even if we don’t agree with them because
it’s those things that make us react and
make us want to bring about change we
have the freedom to express ourselves
but also to hear the thing we don’t want
to hear and that is equally important
the freedom to be challenged let’s
embrace that let’s not squander our
freedom thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
so I’m going to start by showing you
some images of my work and some feedback
I’ve had over the years
can you leave out the menstrual blood
now this is a painting I made called
matric with prides and as you can see
people are crowded around looking
shocked and appalled by the menstrual
blood if there was no menstrual blood
they’ll just be looking shocked and
appalled for no reason thanks for the
feedback mum that’s just unnatural as
you can see here they are referring to
my completely natural armpit hair which
took me three months to grow fun fact if
you think it’s okay to be a Muslim live
a westernized life and rely on being a
good person you are wrong you will burn
in hell now this person was referring to
a number of images that I’ve made for
example this one which is called white
girl and this one self-portrait with
melons I will look for you I will find
you and I will kill you some of the more
observant here today may have noticed
that was actually quite from the film
taken but I did get similar comments on
my work and I will come back to that in
a minute
so this work didn’t just come out of
nowhere it came through from a
breakthrough moment that I had when I
was at art school I made a work where I
thought yes this is the kind of artist
that I want to be so when your article
you have to do these terrifying crit
sessions where as a group you go around
and you show your work and you give
feedback in everything to your
classmates and on this particular
occasion I noticed there was a pattern
emerging I noticed every time the men
got up to speak it seemed like we
automatically kind of respected them and
we really listened to them and when the
women got up to speak we were so much
harder on them I said it’s more
dismissive of them and I was complicit
in that and we were all complicit in
that
and so when I was driving home late I
was thinking about it snow I was
thinking how we kind of had this sort of
unconscious positive bias towards the
men and it was the first time in my life
I really realized that I might be held
back because of my gender and it wasn’t
that I was a feminist I didn’t even know
what feminism was it was just a feeling
that I had that something wasn’t quite
right so I was driving home was getting
really annoyed and thinking oh I wish I
was a man if I was a man people would
take the things I have to say so much
more seriously and then this work kind
of came into my head it says I wish I
had a penis
because then I’d you then steal
your job and this highly amused me so
the next crit session that we had I
plucked up the courage to show my tutor
in class makes this image up until this
point I had literally just been doing
pictures of me rain berries so they were
not expecting this so when I showed them
they were like ah you can’t say this you
can’t talk about this we don’t need
feminism what do you mean and I realized
they were talking like this because I
attached on something they did not want
to think about something they’d happily
parked in the back of their minds
I had unwittingly exposed that things
that was my breakthrough and I thought
at this point I have to say I’d always
felt pretty powerless I had a lot to say
but a lot of issues but I didn’t know
how to express it or how to make sense
of it when I made this work it gave me
the power arts gave me a voice and as we
all know there are so many unequal
things in society and it’s almost like
we’ve kind of gotten used to some of
those things and that’s not our fault
and I realized I could use art to call
out those things and maybe I could be
part of a movement to change things I
could use art to say the unsayable so
what happens when you do that this is a
picture that I made in 2008
it’s called Haram and I’d like you to
raise your hands if you find this image
offensive
okay so I’ll be honest I was unsure
whether to show this image because I
know it’s a difficult one and I know
that if I’ve seen it I think I’ll
probably be offended by it so let me
tell you a little bit more about this my
mother is a Muslim she was born in Kenya
and she married my non-muslim British
father she raised me and my siblings as
Muslims any spawn and sent us to a
Catholic school so a lot of my work is
about that duality my upbringing and the
conflicts of identity amongst young
British Muslims for those of you who
don’t know eating pork is prohibited in
the Koran and as a result of that for
many Muslims pigs are an offensive
things and I would say most Muslims who
break the odd rule here and there would
still not break that rule because it’s
such a taboo and for me growing up pigs
almost kind of became a symbol of the
other of someone who was different to me
but when I got older I realized that
other is me as I’m a mix of various
British Muslims living in the Western
world and how does that parallel other
British Muslims who may be feeling
conflicts of identity and on a personal
level I have to say the work was a
deeply personal work for me looking at
my upbringing and all the things that
I’d experienced and it means a lot to me
so it’s quite hard to summarize it in
this talk but I will summarize its the
idea was to bring these two things
together to ask the question how can we
embrace these two cultures so exhibited
this work in 2008 in London during the
show I get a phone call with telling me
I need to come to the gallery right away
because someone had thrown a brick
through the gallery window the press got
hold of this story and it went crazy the
reason behind me making it had just
gotten completely lost and it was all
over the news I tried to keep it from my
friends and family but it just wasn’t
possible it got more serious when I
started receiving death threats towards
me and my family
when the police came one of them said to
me you knew this would happen
you should never have
it now thank you for the feedback
officer greatly appreciated I knew I was
doing something provocative but I was
taking a risk
I thought the risk was worth taking to
say the thing I felt needed to be said
now disclaimer I am NOT comparing myself
to and he please people but imagine if
he was right imagine if we applied that
school of thoughts revolutionaries
throughout history if they avoided doing
something that may offend people what he
was saying in fact was be quiet which is
something a lot more serious so I have a
confession to make I recently signed a
petition to stop somebody from speaking
in the UK I think it was like an
anti-feminist speaker or something after
I signed it I thought what have I done
because that completely contradicts
everything that I stand for as an artist
because even if I disagree with that
person they have the right to speak this
is what got me thinking about the
silencing of artists and activists in my
work as we hear now more and more people
on social media for example here are
being trolled consistently online as
well this is a way to silence their
voices sorry mmm this is a way to
silence their voices a lot of these
activists actually said that they have
stopped their work altogether and they
began to self-censor I can relate to
this
I had always maintained that I was
strong and I would never give in to any
abuse and I would always make
controversial work
I made my haram painting in 2008 I
realized I had not touched on Islam
again in my work since that I’d always
said I was strong and I would I would
never I would never give in to abuse and
that’s I didn’t need to talk about that
subject anymore but how could I not need
to talk about that anymore Islam is at
the very core of my identity it’s
incredulous when I think that I didn’t
need to discuss that any
the truth was they had one I’ve been
self-censoring
and I just hadn’t realized it but don’t
food to story of me because I was still
annoying people work just about
something else and I have to say this is
the piece that annoys people the most
and I’m not sorry about that one bit
people always say to me I know you don’t
mean to offend and you want to provoke
anyone but the thing is I do I don’t
think you should provoke anyone just for
the sake of it there’s no point in that
but I think provocation can be used in a
clever way and it can be used to make us
think and that is the point of arts that
is why I do what I do I recently saw a
discussion where someone said you can
have freedom of speech but there are
limits but I think that conversation is
a complete non-starter because an order
of freedom of speech to be a thing there
can be no limits if there are limits
there isn’t it freedom of speech or with
no freedom of speech we cannot progress
as a society I always think we’re so
lucky in this country we technically we
can say what we wants and and we can be
who we want to be but that’s certainly
not the way it is all over the world we
have a great gift and we need to use it
I don’t have the answers I’m afraid I
simply make the work and leave it up
there for you to discuss I think we need
to be challenged we need to hear
challenging radical provocative things
even if we don’t agree with them because
it’s those things that make us react and
make us want to bring about change we
have the freedom to express ourselves
but also to hear the thing we don’t want
to hear and that is equally important
the freedom to be challenged let’s
embrace that let’s not squander our
freedom thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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