Solidarity with artist Hamja Ahsan fund

Solidarity with artist Hamja Ahsan fund

Help artist Hamja Ahsan counter repression, racism and a new McCarthyism in Germany and beyond.

Who is Hamja Ahsan?

Hamja Ahsan is an award-winning artist, writer and activist, born and based in London, England. He has been active in campaigns for Palestine solidarity, the antiwar movement, anti-racism, police accountability & social equality since 2003 Iraq war. He was selected as an artist for Documenta 15 - the world’s most prestigious exhibition of contemporary art - that took place in Kassel, Germany 2022.

During this period he was subject to a siege of racist abuse, threats to his life and destruction of his artwork, smear campaigns, political witchhunts and media bullying, often incited by German media and politicians in favour of silencing and censorship of artists in solidarity with Palestine.

Racist threats and Germany

Hamja Ahsan was targeted by a range of fascist, anti-muslim racist groups and Israel-aligned figures.

The surging fascist party AfD who issued public statements against him as a “muslim” artist who must be punished. Their parliamentary representative Frank Grobe expressing his disdain for the Documenta exhibition having too many artist muslim names. Fascist Beatrix Von Storch, a Nazi scion, also visited the exhibition venue lambasting the Black Archives, Black Lives Matter and Arab art collectives slandering all the artists as “extremists”.

Even before the exhibition opened, one of his exhibition venues Ruruhaus (hosting his artwork “Fanon Fried Chicken”) was defaced with anti-muslim stickers inciting to: “Fight Islam consistently!” and in additional slogans “Freedom not Islam! No compromise with barbarism!” “Solidarity with Israel” in the German language. In May 2022, Another one of his exhibition venues WH22 (hosting 3 further artworks: Moors Fried Chicken, Kabul Fried Chicken and Khabib Fried Chicken) was vandalised with the name PERALTA! thought to refer to the Neo-Nazi social media influencer Isabel Peralta. Artists from Gaza Eltiqa Collectivem exhibiting next door to his exhibition also had their exhibition vandalised with 187 a code of a murder.

Black Artists from the Carribean from the Ghetto Bienniale collective were also attacked in their exhibition spaces, Artists from LE18 were abused in the streets, Indian art collective Party Office were attacked in the streets. The region of Hesse which hosts Documenta exhibition is host to disturbing racist violence. One of NSU Underground Neo-Nazi serial murder took place here Hazlit Yoghat.The Hanau racist mass murders also took place. Walter Lubcke, a centre-right CDU politican and Documenta 7 staff member, was also recently murderedin 2019 by a Neo-Nazi for pro-refugee views.

The FDP, who have previously spearhead a campaign against black philosopher Achille Mbembe at German arts festival Ruhrtrienniale, also targeted him. On the day of his public event People’s Chicken, an FDP politician Stefan Naas posting 3 times about Hamja on social media with zipped mouth becoming a catalyst for siege of racist abuse. The FDP cultural spokesman in other regions are attacking artists, film festivals and philosophers in solidarity with Palestine.

The Islamophobic Antideteusche movement had also been monitoring and smearing Hamja.

This is also part of a wider war on post-colonialism with the German parliament.

Documenta 15 : The Other Story

Hamja will produce the zine - Post-Documenta Trauma as part of this fund.

Documenta 15 ran from 18th June 2022 to 25th September 2022.

The next Documenta, edition 16 is set for 12 June 2027 -September 2027.

Each edition is held every 5 years in the city of Kassel since 1955. Each edition is considered an important part of art history and is often debated and discussed for decades around the world. Missing from the mainstream narrative is a narrative focused on Islamophobia. The story remains the story of the hunted and not the hunter. Build towards an anti-racist future.

He has been working other artists affected by this new wave of repression including Shahidul Alam and Resolve collective, organising panels on censorship and McCartyism. He has featured on podcasts in Germany, Belgium, Slovenia and Spain (MACBA) sharing this experiences and highlighting the cases of others affected by this system.

Help artist Hamja Ahsan counter repression, racism and a new McCarthyism in Germany and beyond.

LISTEN to Post-Documenta Trauma Radio Show

Hamja Ahsan will also recover lawyers fee. His trial is on 12th June 2024 in Kassel, the city of Documenta.

He was represented by esteemed Berlin Lawyers Nadija Samour. And later her colleague Alexander Gorski (currently representing Yanis Varoufakis & Ghassan Abu Sitta) reimburse his legal costs

The deplatformed event focused on Islamophobia Radical Chicken will also be restaged at a future date featuring original speaker. Travel and accommodation will be covered.