Muslims in America Road Trip

Hi, I'm Mahtab Hussain. I am a British artist working in photography, film and sculpture. For over twenty years I have explored identity, belonging and representation, through the eyes of someone born in the UK to Pakistani/Kashmiri parents.

I am now asking for your support to help make it possible to make a road trip across the United States, to meet, make portraits and record interviews with people from across Muslim America, in order to complete a major body of work, for exhibition and publication. 

Story

With 9/11, a long shadow fell. For years, many Muslims felt they needed to be invisible to survive. But two decades on, a new generation is not hiding, wanting to be seen and understood, and who are shaping their styles and identities in distinctly American ways. This project is about how that presence feels. It is about belonging. It is about being woven into the fabric of the country rather than positioned as a problem within it. It is about spirituality in our daily lives. 

I began this series in 2021, making ‘chapters’ of the work in Toronto, then New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Syracuse, NY, and Dearborn, Michigan. City by city, I have built this work through portraits and interviews – I’ve had so many amazing encounters! - raising funds as I go by offering portfolios for sale from each city.

What is missing now is the full arc of America. There’s many other places I want to visit, to meet people and engage with the widest possible spectrum of Muslim experience, across the American landscape.

Road Trip Map

With your support, I will travel from the East Coast to the West, from South Paterson, New Jersey, until I reach Vancouver, (a symbolic place to end, as the project began in Canada). I will visit the Muslims of Houston and Minneapolis, rural Muslim communities in North Carolina and Mississippi, and maybe meet some Muslim tourists on the edge of the Grand Canyon, Everywhere I go, I will make portraits, videos and gather stories. The sitters for the portraits are not subjects in the typical sense - they are co-authors of a shared experience. I hope the series makes visible the powerful idea of “Umma” that connects Muslims across geography and background.

The American road trip is such a powerful and romantic photographic tradition. I want to step into the lineage of other photographers who’ve done photo road trips across the USA before me, and expand it.

Since the beginning, there has been a “live” element to the work; I host discussions, involve participants and share the process openly. I will document the road trip live, sharing images, conversations and reflections on Instagram and YouTube, bringing supporters inside the journey as it unfolds.

I will produce a projection piece of the work to show in public spaces, festivals and museums. I already have this all worked out, (with original music by Leo Kalyan) and it will be complete by the end of 2026. I am working on plans for a museum show, and a book of the work for children, which will follow later. All supporters will be kept closely involved as these outcomes take shape, with notice of public events.

Completing this feels necessary, for me as an artist, and for the cultural record. With your help, I can get this done.