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Ahmed Krausen, the photographer. |
"Being a Muslim in Europe," a photography exhibition that will take place in Egypt at El-Sawy Culture Wheel, from April 21, 2008, and till the end of the same month. The photographer is Ahmed Krausen, a freelance photographer based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and specialized in the study and photographic documentation of the Islamic architecture in Europe.
The aim of the exhibition is: Showing the diversity of Islamic expressions, especially how Islam is managed in different ways by European Muslims. Krausen, who was born in 1955 in Germany, sees that, "It is important to show that Denmark is not just the
country of the cartoon controversy but that Denmark— as well as the rest of Europe— is also a new abode for a growing Muslim population." This Muslim population includes immigrants as well as native Danes and other Europeans who have converted to Islam.
The Muslim community in Europe is diverse among other things in regards to ethnicity, cultural background, and whether its members were born Muslims or are new converts. Furthermore, European Muslims interpret Islam in different ways and adapt to the non-Muslim environment with a lot of creativity. In other words, Muslims in Denmark, as well as in the rest of Europe, negotiate; what does it mean to be Muslim in a European context?
Krausen, who embraced Islam in 1992 after he was inspired by a long trip to Sudan and Egypt, attempts to show this negotiation through a combination of images, principally, of architecture and people's daily activities and ceremonial gatherings.
The images of architecture focus on old and new mosques in different European countries and how they adapt or contrast themselves to local architecture.
"By these images, I add an often-neglected brick to the rich and great architectures of Muslims around the world," Remarks Krausen.
The images of the lives of Muslims consist of portraits of both born-Muslims and converts in activities such as biking, shopping, reading in the Qur'an, praying, celebrating weddings, and participating in burials.
"I hope this exhibition will contribute to inspire the entire Muslim community to know one another, as well as to establish bridges and cultural dialogue between Denmark and Egypt and, more broadly, between Europe and the Muslim World."
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