Hamja Ahsan: The People’s Chicken

Coinciding with his stay in Barcelona, invited by the Sâlmon Festival to carry out a residency at the Santa Mònica, the artist, writer, curator and activist Hamja Ahsan offers us a talk and fried chicken tasting about his project Chicken Contemporary. Ahsan takes as a starting point the political use and Islamophobic accusations that popular fast-food places in Britain that serve dishes such as fried chicken receive in order to appropriate their hate speeches and exercise a critique through over-identification and humour. In this particular project he explores the identity, ethics and aesthetics of this dish: he approaches fried chicken as a graphic style, as class struggle, as empire and resistance, and as a means of intervention within art institutions. It also explores the specific role of halal fried chicken in the war on terror, racial and migratory identities, and self-healing.

With the participation of Hamja Ahsan

Hamja Ashan is an artist, writer, activist and curator based in London, UK. He is the author of Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert. He received the Grand Prize at the Ljubljana Biennial 2019. He is co-curator of DIY Cultures, a festival of creative activism, zines and independent publishing since 2013. He was shortlisted for the Liberty human rights prize for the Free Talha Ahsan campaign on extradition under the war on terror. He is on the editorial board of Radical Mental Health Asylum magazine. He has presented PS1 MOMA art projects at New York Art Week, Tate Modern, Gwangju Biennale, Shaanakht Festival Pakistan, CCA Warsaw Poland and Documenta 15. His practice includes all media: conceptual writing, archival construction, performance, video, sound and zines.

Wednesdays of sound and body 2023 builds on the proposals of: