In a new mural, Milwaukee’s Muslim Community sees itself

Photo by Cherrie Hanson

Artist Amelia Bader stands next to the mural she created in Milwaukee, completely funded by the local Muslim community.

On the southside of Milwaukee, a large, new mural reflects images of the city’s diverse Muslim community. 

An almost 50-foot-long wall facing 13th Street near Edgerton Avenue features 7-foot-tall Muslim figures in traditional dress from across the world, including the United States. The wall belongs to Amanah Food Market and sits in the middle of a large Muslim community on Milwaukee’s southside.

“I wanted to showcase different ethnicities and backgrounds in the Muslim community, a compilation of different cultures in one piece,” said artist Amelia Bader of Milwaukee, whose artist name is Janine Katbeh. “Our differences make us beautiful, and despite those differences, we are all one,” she says in a quote posted on Fanana Banana’s Instagram.

Fanana Banana, a Milwaukee organization co-founded by Amal Azzam and Nayfa Naji in 2019, works to provide local Muslim artists with platforms where their work can be seen.

“Fanana” means female artist in Arabic. It put out a call in May for Muslim women artists from Greater Milwaukee to propose a design “to uplift, inspire and strengthen the Milwaukee Muslim Community.”  The only instructions said to include the phrase: “We are the Power of Society!”

Around the same time, the organization launched a GoFundMe page, making this a 100% community-supported project. “I think this adds an important aspect to the history of this project,” Azzam said.

Bader answered the call and recently completed the 50-by-9-foot mural on one of the southside’s busiest roads. “Thanks to the generous support of the Al-Amanah Market owner, who has once again offered this wall facing the street, we now have the chance to create something new,” a Fanana Banana Instagram post said.

Spotting a perfect location

Azzam spotted the location back in 2020, when she worked for the nonprofit Leaders Igniting Transformation. “I saw the long, bare, empty wall and thought it would be a perfect place for a mural to go up,” she said.

With her employer’s support, she created the design for a mural and hired artists Aya Mustafa, Wajiha Akbar and Nayfa Naji to help her paint it on the Amanah Food Market wall.

“Fast forward to today,” Azzam continued. “I kept noticing the mural and felt maybe it’s time for another artist to have her moment in the city. I decided I am willing to let go of this design and have someone else make something new. It will be beneficial to have a new moment in our history.”

Photos by Amal Azzam

Artists Aya Mustafa and Wajiha Akbar were among artists in 2020 who painted Amal Azzam’s “We Are the Power of Society” mural on the Amanah Food Market wall.

Funded by Milwaukee’s Muslim community

Azzam also wanted to use a new model for funding. “I wanted to allow for artwork in a predominantly Muslim area to have roots in the community itself,” she said.

Azzam started planning. She contacted the Amanah Food Market owner. “He’s always been very helpful and open to ideas. He made things very easy the first time and the same this time,” she said.

She posted an open call to Muslim female artists in the Milwaukee area that was transparent about the fact that the artist would have to commit to painting the mural while funds for her payment were being raised. “I just laid all the cards on the table,” Azzam said. Using a GoFundMe meant it could be an investment from the community as well, she added.

The fundraiser began about two months before Bader began painting.  The site requested $20 pledges. “There are a lot of things going on that need attention,” said Azzam. “I thought small pledges could still make a lot of difference.” The Muslim Women’s Coalition and Amal Amro were top donors. A number of other donors contributed $100 or more. “Every dollar made a difference,” Azza said. “With everyone’s generosity, it worked out well.” The site shows $2,355 were raised. 

Photos courtesy of Amelia Bader

From beginning to the end of the artistic process, Amelia Bader creates a Muslim community mural.

“The majority of funds went to pay the artist,” said Azzam. “The labor costs much more than the supplies, depending on the skillset of the artist. Amelia has a very strong and high skill set when it comes to painting. She is fully capable of painting a mural with a lot of detail.

“I feel personally very proud to have been a facilitator of getting this mural up at this location,” Azzam said. “I’m proud to offer local artists the ability to showcase their talent. It’s a channel that isn’t open enough to the artists in our community. And that it was supported by the Muslim community itself is a big plus.

“I’m proud of the mural Amelia created. It serves as a great reminder for everyone who resides in that area of some of the many different cultures living there. I hope when members of our Muslim community see it, they will feel seen and represented.  I think it’ll be there for a very long time.”

Creating the art 

The call for the mural required the artist to use the phrase “We are the Power of Society,” a carry-over from the original mural Azzam designed. “Everything else was left for my own artistic creativity, which is where the idea of these came from,” Bader said, pointing to 11 figures representing Muslims from different cultures. They included women—Desi (from India or Pakistan), Burmese, Yemeni, Palestinian, Somali, Afghan and Syrian—and men—Palestinian, African American, Jordanian and Tunisian. The African American, based on Malcom X, is the only one that represents an actual person. Bader used reference photos from her research “but I added my own touch to some of them,” she said.

With help from Azzam and her family, Bader painted the background with red exterior wall paint.

Photos by Cherrie Hanson

To include “We are the Power of Society” was the only instruction the artist was given.

The next step took place at night. She projected the design on the wall from her iPad and with the help of two artist friends from Milwaukee, painted the outlines.

“Everything else was me,” Bader said. She painted the colors of the clothing and skin with spray paint. The markings of the kaffiyeh and the intricate face veil of the Yemeni woman were done by hand with a paint marker.  

Bader estimates it was between three and four weeks of work. She started in early August and finished the first week of September. However, there were days when she was not able to paint because of weather or personal commitments.

As she stood on the sidewalk in front of the mural, a school boy walked by and gave her a thumbs up. “He’s one of the kids that asked for my autograph one day,” she told the reporter interviewing her. “I’m really happy about how it turned out. I couldn’t have done it without the support of the community and my family.”

Photo by Cherrie Hanson

Amelia’s murals

“I’ve been painting since I was little,” Bader said. “It’s always been an interest of mine. And I always want to do more.

“Painting on canvas is nice but it limits you,” she continued. “Being able to work on a mural, on such a large scale, is exhilarating! It also lets me get my work out there for other people to see it. Most of my paintings I just keep for myself or put them in a gallery for a day or a month, then no one ever sees them again. A mural is going to be public. Everyone passes by. And it’s going to be up there for a while.”

This southside mural was Bader’s fifth. She is currently at work on her sixth, a project for a business in Madison. 

She painted her first mural in 2020 in Milwaukee at North Avenue and Holton during the Black Lives Matter movement. It is still up. She helped with another Fanana Banana mural around that time that was created on plywood. Bader designed a mural at Nathan Hale High School in West Allis when she was a student and painted it with classmates. Her fourth is inside Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Company in Greenfield.

This mural at Amanah Food Market on 13th Street at Edgerton is perhaps the most widely seen, especially by people in the Muslim community. “It’s a really good location, facing South 13th Street,” Bader noted. “It is a really busy road, especially for the Muslim community—close to the ISM (Islamic Society of Milwaukee), against the wall of one of the more popular Arabic grocery stories.

“People give me a lot of really nice words of affirmation and compliments about this one.”