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Under the name Aerosol Arabic, Mohammed Ali was a pioneer in blending street art with Arabic script and imagery. He has made murals, installations, videos and theatrical productions around the world, from his native Birmingham, UK, to the US, Australia, and even the Vatican. He talks about developing his unique style and why he believes graffiti is both an ancient art and an innate part of humanity.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
Welcome to This Being Human…I’m your host Abdul Rehman-Malik. On this podcast from the Aga Khan Museum, I talk to extraordinary people from all over the world whose life, ideas and art are shaped by Muslim culture.
NADIR NAHDI:
There's a new generation that has a very unique perspective to how they see themselves as young Muslims in the modern world.
TANYA MUNEERA WILLIAMS:
I am this wide-eyed girl. I'm like, I want it all, I want to experience it all.
GINELLA MASSA:
Everyone has a story. Sometimes you just have to find out what it is.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
Like the poem that inspires this podcast, The Guest House, by Sufi poet Jallaludin Rumi, we’re talking to people who seek meaning and joy in work and life…regardless of what the day brings.
We’ve covered a wide range of arts on this podcast – literature, movies, painting, fashion and much more. But there’s one artform that we haven’t really talked about before. It’s something that people in cities all over the world encounter every day. I’m talking about graffiti.
MOHAMMED ALI:
It was kind of us saying screw the system and the system doesn't provide for us, so we will create our own art. And this was us, the voice of youth, almost reclaiming the city and the streets.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
By its very nature, street art is less likely to end up in a museum than an oil painting or a sculpture – but it has a deep cultural tradition, dating back at least to the mid-1970s with the advent of hip hop culture.
My guest today, Mohammed Ali, argues that graffiti is actually far older and far more deeply ingrained in our society than that.
Mohammed sometimes goes by the name Aerosol Arabic. His unique style fuses Arabic script and imagery into graffiti. His work has shown up in cities from Melbourne to New York to Amsterdam, to his native Birmingham, UK. He has mentored countless artists and founded the organization Soul City Arts, which creates programs that seek to build community through the arts in his hometown.
But he’s not limited to the streets. He also makes installations and stages theatrical performances, where he creates murals onstage in front of a live audience, alongside sound and music pieces. And that’s taken him to a lot of interesting places – including a TEDxTalk at The Vatican, which is where we started our conversation.
MOHAMMED ALI:
That was a very memorable experience to me, to be in the heart of Catholicism. You know, it was quite special. I remember getting the query about the first time a TEDx had taken place in the Vatican State. And I thought, you know, these guys are approaching me as a Muslim, as a committed Muslim to present in such a place. I remember feeling like stunned of with this invitation I had. A street artist, a Muslim coming in to, you know, the Vatican state. Flipping heck, this is serious stuff. So, I remember, you know, taking spray cans with me into the Vatican, you know, again, thinking, What is going on here? It was an absolute if I'm honest, it was one of – you are right to flag it up top because it was one of the experiences, probably one of the most memorable for me, because I just felt that I was given a platform like no other. This was a true honor to be given such a space. It was a true honor to be given such a free space to express what I wanted. The beauty of that experience was not once did anybody say, Hey, listen, you know, tell us, what are you going to share on stage? Not a single person. And I just thought, what a beautiful gesture, a beautiful, open gesture. And I could only but respond with that openness in return to just give everything I had.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
In that TEDxTalk, Mohammed said something that struck me. He said graffiti is part of our innate nature as human beings.
MOHAMMED ALI:
I have given so much thought to and pondered upon the beauty of leaving a mark upon a wall. And really dissected that and thought, like more than any other person would do so, about the idea and the act of carving, scratching and inscribing a visual mark upon a public space and what that means. And actually, it wasn't born in the subways of New York. Actually, the idea of carving into public spaces. We know if you look at the history, it goes back to the caves and the Neolithic rock art and the indigenous handprints of places like Australia and Indonesia. Tens of thousands of years before we go, “Oh, these spray can vandals with their hoods in the subways.” What you need to understand that you are all graffiti artists. Because when you’re on the phone and you have a pen in your hand, what are you doing? It's our human nature to carve, to scratch or to scribble in a place that wasn't designed to be done so. So, if you can do it in the corner of your schoolbooks or maybe on a piece of paper that, you know, maybe a bill or a letter that, you know, that's sitting on your desk. I always challenge people when I'm even talking to them, I say, guys, hold up your pieces of paper, but you've got graffiti on your paper now. Right? In a meeting or in a class. So, it really is an innate part of our nature to leave our mark. We all want to be heard. We all want to say, I exist, and this is me. And we cannot and we must not deny society of a space to just say I exist. And to put that in a public space is something beautifully empowering. To put it in a space where you know one day someone else will come and see a visual depiction of yourself as the creator of that piece. That's what graffiti is.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
Mohammed grew up in Birmingham, England, in a neighborhood made up of largely immigrants. It’s the place his parents chose as their home in the late 1950s, after leaving Bangladesh. It’s where his father worked for decades as a restauranteur – and where Mohammed found hip hop culture.
MOHAMMED ALI:
I always say Birmingham ain't no Tokyo, Paris, or Sydney. I tell you that now, let's not pretend that it's some beautiful, you know, picturesque city. It's grimy. It's dirty. It's gritty. But you know what? That's how we like it. And I wouldn't have it any other way. And what's most exciting about it is that we shape this city. And as immigrants, like our parents, they came and made something home. We also are committed to saying, you know what? I crafted that space. We were the ones who polished it and crafted it and shaped it for the next generation and I love the fact that this is open canvas to kind of tweak and twist and play with it. It's a little playground for us for the next generation. So, I think you've detected in my voice I'm very passionate about the city of Birmingham, England. Not to be confused with Birmingham, Alabama.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
And how did you get involved in tagging itself? Tell me about the early moments of when you pick up that can, like, what were you tagging on the street? What was your mark looking like?
MOHAMMED ALI:
Let's remember that these spray cans were never designed to make art, and that was the beautiful thing about it. We were abandoning the brushes and the pencils for these bits of metal filled with paint. Pressurized cans that were designed for spraying cars and spraying metal objects. We were reappropriating these tools and actually going, this was our chosen tool. And the surface were brick walls or metal carriages or steel shutters, whatever it be. You obliterated whatever was in front of you and that was the beauty of the spray can. It was immediate. It was - the colors were vibrant, and they could literally just wipe out anything in its path. When you had a spray can in your hand, you had power. And it's really important to note that. I suppose in a society or a time many felt powerless and voiceless, this amazing tool that we had in our hand just suddenly made us superhuman. We could find any surface and tag your name or write your name in beautiful letters. You could bring color to the ugliness of our society. And that was quite something that when you see the dilapidated, the very kind of rundown parts of inner-city areas where there was, you know, poverty, suddenly for you as a citizen of or a resident of that place, to say, I can enhance the visual space and the visual landscape. Because nobody would do it for you. You had to almost take it into your own hands to say, you know what, that public space belongs to me. When we see ugly concrete, gray walls that are almost soulless, especially in the modern age today, where we see glass structures and, you know, corporations just building these steel monuments that are really quite soulless... When you see the bit of colour kind of splashed across randomly and sporadically within this concrete jungle, you kind of go: we're breathing life into the city.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mohammed, what was your tagging name?
MOHAMMED ALI:
No comment.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Come on. You got to give it to us. You got to give it to us.
MOHAMMED ALI:
I can't do that. No, no. My name back then. I was a young kid then, you know. So, I think it's probably best to leave that chapter closed as to who I was. Yeah, I can't give it to you, mate, I'm sorry.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Well, that begs another question, Mohammed. Were you getting in trouble for tagging?
MOHAMMED ALI:
I have no shame in opening up to the fact that, yes, I was one who did things and painted and that was - you had to, right? There was no designated places for graffiti. And in fact, that was the beauty of it. You know, what I just mentioned about that kind of dynamic in that power game we were playing had to be about reclaiming space. And that was done illegally, of course. Right? There was some kind of code of respect even still. Even though you were classified as a vandal. There was still some lines that you wouldn’t cross. So, for example, you know, places of worship, someone's home you wouldn't do or a restaurant or a business. But if you saw an ugly, grimy factory wall that was covered in certain smog and all that filthiness. You kind of would say, you know, come on, really? That isn't the crime of the century for me to put a bit of color on that wall. Right? So that’s how I used to play, and we used to get pulled up for it. And yes, you know, I have been in a situation where, you know, I was chased. But I tell you what. You know, like I said, you kind of go. Really? Come on, guys. You know, there’s bad people in the world out there, and I'm not one of them.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mohammed, you’re coming of age as an artist in a time when, I guess in at least in the art world or in other parts of the world, you know, a graffiti artist like Banksy was becoming really one of the most famous artists of the age, you know. Did the work of folks like Banksy influence the artists that you became, or was there another route for you?
MOHAMMED ALI:
Hmm, Good question. Mentioning of Banksy is something that many graffiti artists would perhaps be quick to clarify for those who are not familiar with the timeline of graffiti that graffiti didn't certainly not start with Banksy. And I do not see that with any bitterness because I have absolute massive respect for Banksy. I take my hat off to anybody who uses graffiti art and extends beyond the writing of your name on a wall, which is what until this day, a good majority of what graffiti art, where you see colorful explosions of spray-painted names on walls in nearly every city in the world. Right? That might just be abstract interlocking letters that might be hard to decipher. And perhaps usually they don't really say anything but the artist's name. So, anyone who's using a spray can who can really take it to a level where it goes beyond the expression of the self as the artist, which a lot of graffiti is, it very much is specifically and often quite selfishly, a very much an imposition of this is me, and that's all I care about right now. Well, Banksy was conveying something that, say, pointed to everything but the self. In fact, it was very much saying some big statements about society and about injustice and whatever very clever statements. And I absolutely have to say, I think he kind of took it to another level. And did it inform what I did? Perhaps subconsciously. Yes, I don't think anything consciously. But, you know, I was making doing what Banksy was doing, but doing it through murals, full color pieces of art with a message. However, I would probably say the stencil kind of style, black and white, kind of very authoritative kind of signage style of graffiti is not something I engage with in the, in my earlier graffiti years. But I'd say I'd probably threw the Banksy influence and the influence he had on street art, you know, it's something that I totally have kind of a I've embraced more so now.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
I mean. Mohammed, you have a very recognizable style from Bangladesh to the Far East, through the inner cities of Europe, to your native Birmingham, to the streets of New York. I think if anyone saw your work, they would be like, Yeah, that's Mohammed Ali’s work. Your work is informed by Arabic script and Islamic imagery, and it's bold, it's powerful, it hits you, it breaks the pattern of the visual space around you. Take us back to when you started developing that style. I'd love to hear the genesis of how your style begins to take form and shape.
MOHAMMED ALI:
I would say when I first started dabbling with Islamic script in particular and Islamic expressions of Islamic faith and themes, it's something that still is, I'm still engaging with and excites me. But in those years when it was almost, I would say, non-existent. In a time when in the eighties, graffiti, and the text, because remember, graffiti was essentially the celebration of written words, but the words were the words of the artist, the name of the artist. But most of the time were written in English. In fact, I'd never seen anything that wasn't written in English, Roman script if you want to call it that. And I remember feeling like, isn't that strange? You know, I was guilty myself you know, you would write your tag, your name using your, the letters E, I, I'll stop there. I won’t tell you what the rest of it. But I used to wonder why on earth it was always in English. Why is it in China or in Tokyo or anywhere else they had all these other wonderful scripts out there, but graffiti was just kind of imported over and just plunked in these other places that pretty much seemed to, just, wanted to emulate what they saw in the subways of New York. And I started pondering, even though I was painting myself, just like everyone else using English script, I eventually started - it occurred to me, especially when I started to rediscover my faith as a Muslim and became drawn back to the faith that I was born into. So, it was in my kind of late teens, and we're talking probably the nineties, where I first dabbled with Arabic script, Quranic script with spray can. And I remember going, Whoa, this is heavy what I'm dealing with. I'm taking Quranic verses, Hadith of the prophet, spraying them with a spray can. Am I the first to do this? I'm not sure I was, but I tell you what, it felt like I was. Right. It felt like I am taking the world of hip hop and bringing Islam into that and merging these two worlds, taking these two art forms, if you like, one which was the celebration or the glorification, rather, of the word of mankind, of man, human beings. The other, Islamic script, Islamic art was the celebration of not the word of man, but the word of God. And I just thought bringing those together, this was explosive stuff, man. Certainly, me as an immigrant, son of an immigrant, saw expressions of Islam being something that was very much how can I put it, associated with being an immigrant. You know, you kind of saw it through that kind of lens of, oh, those people from far off, distant, dusty lands. And you could never really present, or you never saw Islam being expressed through something that was familiar with those like myself who were born and raised in the West. So that's what for me felt like what I was celebrating for myself because I felt like I was expressing something for myself, but then more importantly for me was sharing something and presenting something to the world.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
Now, Mohammed’s art has evolved further, to theatrical experiences, like the one at the Vatican. The transition wasn’t entirely planned.
He remembers one interaction that was a turning point for how he approached his own art.
MOHAMMED ALI:
I was painting a mural in the inner-city part of Birmingham, my home city. And I was painting a verse of the Qur'an. in fact, Inna Ma’al Usri Yusra. After hardship comes ease. And it was a time where my work was celebrated by the community. A lot of people knew my work. It was in fact being filmed by the BBC. And a car pulled up alongside the mural. There’s about 50 people gathered on a corner. And it was all positive vibes. And a car pulled up and a guy shouted from the car, young guy. It wasn't an elder. You might expect it from an elder, but a young guy with his son said, Yo, bro, what are you doing? I was a bit bemused by this question. I said, I'm painting the wall, you know. And he said, What do you think this is? The Bronx? And I thought. Those words just never left me. It was swirling in my heads. Because here was someone who was a local resident, didn't take well to what I was doing. He was someone of Muslim faith, and he owes me putting on a verse of the Qur’an upon a wall. But he felt like I was imposing something upon him. And I stopped painting for a while after that because I began to seriously question how as artists, even though I was feeling like I was doing a noble task and maybe even God's work. Actually, he was someone who didn't agree with the form of what I was offering to his neighborhood. I wasn’t from there in that specific neighborhood and actually began to question how I was a public street artist. I was kind of maybe losing track a little bit. You know, I had to recalibrate, I had to think about what am I offering audiences? What is this, just still an expression of myself? Am I making assumptions about people? Maybe they don't want this no matter how meaningful it is, they don't want it. I started really rethinking and questioning, and I stopped painting for a while Murals. And I had to start thinking about different forms of expression. Perhaps people don't even want to see Quranic verse in their neighborhood. Perhaps they want to have something that might have a different tone completely. So, I started just growing a little bit and thinking about who I paint for. Who is my audience? Who am I, in fact? Am I just that Muslim graffiti guy that, you know, the media were, you know, celebrating a Muslim Banksy, in fact, by BBC Radio Four? I remember them saying today we have someone who is, we would like to refer to as the Muslim Banksy. And I thought, Really? Am I? Am I Aerosol Arabic only? That I just use aerosol cans and I just do Arabic. Or can I be much more than that?
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mm hmm.
MOHAMMED ALI:
So, I didn't ditch the spray can. And I certainly didn't hide my expressions of faith. I'm not saying I'm one of those who said, no, I'm going to tone down the Islam. No way. Never, not from me. But I started thinking about the different voices that I had, that when I work in certain places, when I'm in California working with immigrant Mexican communities or I'm in South Africa in Johannesburg, I kind of listen to the place, the people of those places, and I respond accordingly. I started to really think about that young guy who said, What do you think this is, the Bronx? And I had to listen and really kind of strip things back a little bit and go, am I really immersing myself in these neighborhoods? Am I really responding to these people? Who the hell am I to just come and land and parachute into people's neighborhoods? So, I started, as I said, I didn't ditch the spray can. I was still spraying. Oh, but I just had to think about my voice, who the audience are, and who am I and what can I do beyond the spray can, beyond just Arabic script and Quranic scripts, but actually think, is that the right tone for these people and this neighborhood? And I started to evolve. I started to think I can be more than the Muslim graffiti guy.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK VOICEOVER:
As we were talking, Mohammed was preparing for a project that’s part of Birmingham 2022 – a cultural festival that runs alongside the Commonwealth Games, shining a spotlight on the city he loves.
His project is called Waswasa. It’s a huge project, an immersive theatrical experience that explores the role of Muslim prayer in secular society.
MOHAMMED ALI:
It's really quite exciting. It's quite an honor, in fact, to give it first to my home city. It's a show that we are intending on touring. It's a theme that I'm very, very, very passionate about. The idea of prayer and what that means. What that means in this society. We see the physical act of prayer as something that is so often misunderstood, or perhaps just people don't get it, like, what are these guys doing kissing the floor head on the ground? What's it all about? I've experienced it myself in a shopping mall in my home city of Birmingham. I found a quiet corner in a multistory indoor car parking space, hundreds of cars. And I found a quietest corner of this dark, multistory car park. Rolled out my prayer mat in the corner of the car by someone's car. And someone's returned to the car while I'm head on the ground. Can you imagine the shock, horror of discovering someone kneeling next to her car with my head into the ground? And she screamed. And I just felt, my God, this is this action, physical act, I want to use my… the one ability that I have, which is to make things simple and as beautiful as possible to just shed some light, throw the spotlight and demystify this physical act that so many are familiar with. We see on the football pitches when the footballers score a goal. Like the Mo Salah and the likes. Fingers raised to the sky or prostration to the ground, acknowledging the success and the achievement and actually pointing to something other than the self. I just felt that that's an important story I want to tell. It's an act, a physical act I felt like through theater, an immersive theater show that has multiple disciplines brought together through an installation piece, where people will walk through quite an immersive promenade style experience and then come into a theatrical 30-minute show that involves a physical, theatrical performance of an actor that kind of dips in and out of physical expressions of prayer and woven with kind of storytelling through physical theater. And then finally we have a heritage element where the Birmingham's world-famous oldest Qur’an in the world that it was described as that exists here in the city of Birmingham will be, there'll be a reproduction of it on display within this experience that I create. And I feel the weight of what I'm doing you know. I feel actually like the days of sharing Quranic scripts in a form that perhaps has never been seen before using his spray can. I feel almost like a return to that where I'm dabbling with something quite heavy here. Demystifying Islamic prayer.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
I'm actually taken by your description, right, of the prayer as theatrical, because there is something about the embodied experience of prayer that is indeed theatrical. So Waswasa feels to me like it's bringing together, like, all of you. It's bringing together all these different parts of you. This city you love, the faith that you at times have grappled with, the art forms that you have championed. And you're kind of, like you said, you're not just pulling all the stops, but it feels like you're putting all of Mohammed Ali out there for people to experience, and for people to see.
MOHAMMED ALI:
Absolutely. Because the one aspect in terms of the narrative of the story is also very personal to me. And there's a part in there I speak about death. There's a whole chapter in the show that is really kind of dissects death and talks about death being the biggest taboo in life, which is how I often describe it. So absolutely, it's very personal. It’s, it just captures pretty much everything, like you said. And I'm just excited to get it out there. I'm excited to share it with audiences, Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, just for them to see prayer like they've never seen it before. And I tell you something to help people visualize it better, the world I’m creating. This is how I describe it, to make it very plain and simple. I describe Waswasa the show as Muslim prayer meets Blade Runner 2049. That's the kind of aesthetic that you should expect, right. Creating beautifully lit environments in a kind of Blade Runner-esque world. Exploring what Islam would be and feel like in the future through these physical acts of prayer and art and sound and cinematic visuals. I always say that, I always feel very passionate that if we're going to tell the stories of a community and a people that often don't get their story told, if you can't tell it big and bold, then please leave it be.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mohammed, before we wrap up what has been an incredibly rich conversation. there's something that I need to return to for my sake. I know, Mohammed, that during the pandemic you lost your beloved mother. And as we're recording this, my mother transitioned and passed just a few weeks ago. And I've been thinking a lot about an incredible film that you produced in 2021. And in that film, you explore grief, and you explore loss. And you also remind us of these incredible memories that we all have of our parents, but you remind us of your memories of your mom and your mom running a chip shop, which for those of you who aren't familiar with the terminology, is running a shop that serves what in Canada or the United States would be called French fries. How much did that film help you with the process of coming to understand your mom more, and in a way, how did that film help you in the process of healing, something that I'm still struggling with?
MOHAMMED ALI:
My mum was where I got my strength from. The evening when you hear me speak into this microphone when I speak quite boldly. I was quite a shy child, but I began to find strength inspired by my mum because my mum was harsh when she needed to be harsh against people and soft with people when there was a time to be soft and that judging and to be able to have these different voices and tones is what I learned from my mum. So, I felt like the biggest loss in my life, of my mum, her passing would be in vain if I didn't share that. This taboo in life that we have called death. Even as Muslims, we are trained, we are taught to embrace, to visit graveyards. I still don't think in a kind of regular real sense, we really can deal with it. We speak about it as if it's in these books that we read and we – but when, when it hits the fan, when it really kind of comes and stares this in the face, we crumble. And I felt…I did feel a certain strength that came to me within. I found strength to go, no, you got to kind of celebrate who she was.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Hmm.
MOHAMMED ALI:
Celebrate. And actually, this idea of legacy began to make sense. This word legacy that we hear bandied about, we hear it especially. I mean, I'm a trustee of a museum, so legacy is something you always hear about archives and, you know, hearing about the past. I never really fully understood it until my mom left and I realized I am that legacy now. Everything I do is her. So, I just felt that strength that I've acquired through that film that I put together. It was difficult because it's personal and I thought, do I want to just spill out my heart like these YouTubers might be, or Instagrammers who are just pouring out their heart to this online global family where nothing is sacred and personal anymore? Do I want to put my heart out to people I don't know? Is this right, or should that be something that's sacred and special for me and my family, my children, my wife and my brothers and sisters? But something just compelled me to say, no, you drop your guard on this, put it out there, because any blessings you will receive will be blessings that will be bestowed upon my mother. Something said to me, you're an artist. Make art. Make this film for the sake of my mother. And it just felt like, like planting a tree. Like feeding an orphan or building a well that might feed thirsty people. I made a film.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mohammed Ali, who or what would you like to welcome into your guest house?
MOHAMMED ALI:
Oh. I think I need a bit of time there. Mm. What would you. Can I ask you the question?
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
You can.
MOHAMMED ALI:
Well then, what would you welcome into your Guest House?
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
You know, I thought about this question a lot because we always ask it as our final question to all of our guests. The thing that I would like most to welcome into my guest house always would be a sense of compassion. That, you know, whatever circumstance I find myself in, whatever person or persons or personalities that I encounter, even the ones that I, you know, may vociferously disagree with, I hope that I can at least approach them, the circumstances people find themselves in, with some compassion.
MOHAMMED ALI:
That's helpful because in that word you share, I'm trying to really narrow it down to something that I feel really strongly about. And it's half of that word you just shared, which is a sense of passion. I'm quite an intense guy, right? When I speak, when I get into something, I sometimes wonder with people, where's the passion? When I talk to you, talk to me like, give me your heart, right? When you speak about something, I want to hear it, I wanna feel it. And sometimes I just feel people don't have enough passion. I want to hear people have more passion. I want to see the saliva come rolling off your tongues. Specks of saliva come flying off you. I don't mind if it hits my face. Right? Talk to me. Look at me. And give me some passion, man. Because the world needs more passion for people to just express themselves happily, confidently, authentically, and to say, this is me. I never, ever, ever try and change it for nobody, as I once did, but then learned through the strength of my mum that you are who you are. Don't change for nobody.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Mohammed Ali, thank you so much for being with us on This Being Human.
MOHAMMED ALI:
Thank you. Jazakallah. May Allah bless you, bro. Thank you.
ABDUL-REHMAN MALIK:
Thank you for listening to This Being Human. We will include links to some of Mohammed Ali’s work in the show notes. This Being Human is produced by Antica in partnership with TVO. Our Senior Producer is Kevin Sexton, with production assistance from Zana [Zah-nuh] Shammi. Our Executive Producer is Lisa Gabriele. Mixing and sound design by Phil Wilson. Original music by Boombox Sound. Stuart Coxe is the president of Antica Productions. Katie O’Connor is TVO’s senior producer of podcasts. Laurie Few is the executive for digital at TVO. This Being Human is generously supported by the Aga Khan Museum, one of the world’s leading institutions that explores the artistic, intellectual and scientific heritage of Muslim civilizations around the world. For more information about the museum go to www.agakhanmuseum.org. The Museum wishes to thank Nadir and Shabin Mohamed for their philanthropic support to develop and produce This Being Human.
Under the name Aerosol Arabic, Mohammed Ali was a pioneer in blending street art with Arabic script and imagery. He has made murals, installations, videos and theatrical productions around the world, from his native Birmingham, UK, to the US, Australia, and even the Vatican. He talks about developing his unique style and why he believes graffiti is both an ancient art and an innate part of humanity.
In this episode, Mohammed talks about:
Quotes:
“You are all graffiti artists…it’s our human nature to carve, to scratch, or to scribble in a place that wasn’t designed to be done so.” – Aerosol Arabic, 05:53
“This word ‘legacy’ that we hear bandied about…I never really fully understood it until my mom left. And I realized I am that legacy now. Everything I do is her.” – Aerosol Arabic, 32:40
“The world needs more passion. For people to just express themselves happily, confidently, authentically, and to say, ‘This is me.’ I never, ever, ever try and change it for nobody.” Aerosol Arabic, 36:06
To learn more about this conversation, AR recommends:
