For some individuals and communities, trauma can take years to process, and the scars can be transgenerational.
That is why it has taken 15 years for Birmingham-raised artist and photographer Mahtab Hussain to process and present his latest show, What Did You Want to See?, currently exhibited at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham.
In 2010, West Midlands Police installed 218 cameras in two Muslim-majority districts in Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath, which included CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition, and 72 hidden spy cameras.
The controversial surveillance scheme was called Project Champion, with over £3 million of funding from the Government’s counter-terrorism funds.
Mahtab says some of the cameras peered directly into people’s bedrooms — a violation of privacy that neither he nor other Muslims in the community have forgotten.
Reclaiming the gaze on the Muslim community
In What Did You Want to See?, Mahtab, through his latest photographic series and a number of art installations, challenges the British Government directly and reclaims the gaze on the Muslim community from its prying eyes.
What exactly was it that the Government wanted to see?
What Mahtab’s simulation of surveillance cameras uncovers is a hard-working and diverse Muslim community from multiple ethnic backgrounds leading their day-to-day lives — whether that be running a tyre shop, like Mahtab’s friend Shaf, who is pictured holding a tyre over his shoulder in one of Mahtab’s 19 powerful black-and-white portraits; managing a gym, like Mahtab’s friend, gym owner Sal, also pictured; or nipping out for a cigarette break, like Mahtab’s own mother, pictured standing resolute, cigarette casually in hand.
The 19 Muslims encapsulated in each of the portraits, inspired by American photographer Richard Avedon’s In the American West series, stare defiantly back at you, silently asking, “Is this what you wanted to see?”
“A lot of my exhibitions pose a question as the title,” Mahtab tells The New Arab. “The portraits were printed in New York, and I spent time really elevating each one.”
Mahtab adds, “The gaze is back on you. They are saying, ‘We're here and we're here to stay. We were scarred and traumatised by this event, but England is our home.’”
Humanity and diversity of Muslim communities
Another stand-out piece in the show is A Moment of Unity, a landscape photograph of Eid prayer in Small Heath, which Mahtab took in 2017.
He took the photograph while standing elevated on a cherry picker, in order to achieve the high vantage point and long-distance effect similar to a CCTV camera.
"In this Muslim gathering, you witness nothing but joy. In it, you see the humanity and diversity of the Muslim community,” says Mahtab.
It is clear that the focal point of the exhibition is Mosque City, 160 mosques individually photographed and arranged into a 16 x 10 grid — a nod to the work of German artists Hilla and Bernd Becher.
Mahtab says during Project Champion, the spy cameras were covered, some under the guise of disused security cameras with labels that said ‘Not in Use’.
In Mosque City, he imagines what surveillance photos of Birmingham’s mosques would have looked like.
The installation demonstrates the breadth and variety in Birmingham’s mosque architecture — from traditional domes and towering minarets to less obvious mosques in terraced houses, community centres, retail units and former churches. If you walked past them in person, you might have never known they were mosques.
“The challenge for me was letting the city direct me. With some of the mosques, there were cars in front of the buildings, or it was slightly awkward to get the whole masjid in,” Mahtab explains. “Sometimes, I had to come back because it might have been raining, or the light was bad, or there was too much shadow. Once I had to go back six times to get it right — and I wanted to get it right, because it was going to be seen by everyone. I am proud of each and every single one.”
In Neighbourhood Watched, a Muslim family stands, faces aghast, outside their house at night.
A mother and father have stepped out of their house onto the front drive, with the front door left ajar. Their daughter has just exited her car, the door still open and the headlights switched on, cutting through the darkness.
They have just discovered they are being watched by cameras — their facial expressions reminiscent of a horror movie poster.
“It's very cinematic,” says Mahtab. “The cameras that were located in these two areas were three times the number of cameras that were in the city centre — and they also peered into people's bedrooms. I wanted to make an image where people can step into this family's experience and realise that Project Champion was actually a really bad thing, because some people supported it.”
A space to find closure and heal
What Did You Want to See? is not only about surveillance culture, but it is about communities reconciling the fact that the systems the Government claims are designed to protect us are, in fact, discriminatory and harm us. Mahtab remarks that he has seen visitors leave his exhibition in tears.
Through the exhibition, those who were affected by Project Champion can perhaps find closure and heal — and for those who were not affected, there is the shocking discovery of something so dystopian having taken place in Britain 15 years ago.
That healing begins in Mahtab’s Prayer Room installation. In one of the gallery’s high-ceilinged, white and airy spaces, royal blue prayer mats have been laid on the floor in the direction of the qibla.
The room is adorned with latticed room dividers and a hanging frame of the Prophet Muhammad’s name in Arabic calligraphy — staple décor in many Muslim households.
Mahtab even added a few touches from his mother’s house, like a vase of plastic flowers and net curtains, to give the impression that it’s in someone’s living room.
On a TV, a video of Mahtab performing salah plays; subtitles translate the prayer into English. It is a homely space where visitors are welcome to sit, meditate and reflect.
“It’s incredibly peaceful,” says Mahtab. “There's a real sense of spirituality in the space. I also wanted people to realise that when someone says, ‘Allahu Akbar’, they're not saying they want to kill the infidel — but actually it's about asking God, please can you make me a better person, please guide me. You're the Most Gracious, the Most Forgiving.”
“We are delighted to be working with Photoworks to present Mahtab Hussain’s latest exhibition,” Ikon curator Daphne Chu tells The New Arab. “This powerful body of work showcases the resilience and nuanced experiences of Muslim communities in Britain. It is a privilege to share these experiences and conversations at Ikon Gallery and to support an artist whose practice resonates deeply with the city and beyond.”
“I'm really proud of the whole show,” Mahtab adds. “Everything flows so beautifully, and there's a real story that's being told throughout. I want people who visit to open up their hearts. The thing about an exhibition like this is that it’s so silent, but it speaks volumes. That internal conversation that takes place — whether it's in the body or the mind — I just want people to sit with it and really question what it is that we've been told about each other and how we want to move forward as a society.”
What Did You Want to See? runs until 1 June 2025 at Ikon Gallery Birmingham and is free. For more information, visit the Ikon website
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press
Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA