This project gathers together a collection of anti-Muslim signs used by Islamophobic groups in Western Europe and appropriates them to create a multicultural response. The design of the signs evokes the system of isotypes used on public roads and transport systems. Against the essentialist grain of the isotype, we produce signs that simultaneously tag Islamophobic movements and warn against them, much as traffic isotypes warn about traffic conditions. The notion of threat and warning is thereby questioned: what do we really need to be alarmed about? Is it the mosques being built or the protests against them?

Concept, design, and production: Azra Akšamija

Installation (2012)
Project commissioned by Onomatopee, Eindhoven, for the exhibition Who told you so?! #2 Truth vs. Organisation, curated by Freek Lomme.
Materials: 15 traffic signs (vinyl print), steel poles
Dimensions: signs, variable
Also see:
Azra Akšamija, Mosque Manifesto: Propositions for Spaces of Coexistence. Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2015;
“Azra Aksamija,” in WHO TOLD YOU SO?! The Collective Story vs. the Individual Narrative, edited by Freek Lomme, 96–101. Santa Monica, CA: RAM Publications, 2013.