What does the work of young Muslim artists tell us about cultural tensions in the UK over the past 15 years? As a new generation of poets, playwrights and painters emerges, we meet four who are changing the narrative…
The stories that follow are based on interviews with four successful young British artists – working as actors, poets, playwrights, painters – who grew up in Muslim communities. Three of the artists I spoke to were born in this country; the fourth, Yusra Warsama, arrived as a baby. All in their 30s, they are old enough to remember the relatively relaxed multiculturalism of the 1990s and to have come of age during the increasing tensions, driven by the news agenda of the past 15 years.
The question I was interested to put to them was this: to what degree do they feel a responsibility to use their artistic voices to counter the stridently negative stereotypes that young British Muslims face?
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