You get me?
(Book - Regular Print)

Photographed over a nine-year period, You Get Me? by British artist Mahtab Hussain is a book centered on the experiences of young working-class South Asian Muslim men in contemporary Britain. Largely a book of portraits, it also documents the local environments of these men, picking up on manifest signs of multi-cultural identity.

The photographs in You Get Me? are interspersed with evocative extracts from Hussain's numerous conversations with Muslim men, principally in London, Nottingham and Birmingham. Bringing issues of identity, masculinity, displacement and belonging to the fore, the book addresses concrete experiences of these men against a backdrop of derogatory media representations. Confronting the politics surrounding immigration and identity in Britain, Hussain at once celebrates the implicit agency of his photographic subjects, while recognizing their struggle to determine a sense of self. - MACK.--Publishers website.

British-born artist Mahtab Hussain is heavily influenced by multiculturalism and cultural diversity. His work centers on issues of identity and displacement. "You Get Me?" focuses on the changing identity of young, working-class South Asian men in contemporary Britain. With a burgeoning population of 2.7 million, Muslims have been an integral part of the UK since the 1950s. Nevertheless, an increasing number - particularly young men - often feel like outsiders. They experience high unemployment rates, discrimination in the workplace and racism on the street as they equally struggle to develop a sense of self. Yet these men strongly identify with England and have a strong sense of Britishness.