At first glance, the work of graffiti artist Mohammed Aliand photographer Peter Sanders appear to be worlds apart. The former uses modern graffiti to bring Koranic script to life, the later uses photography to lament the passing of Islam's bygone age. But the power of the two, on show together at this week's Salam in the City exhibition, is highlighted by their contrast between the modern and the traditional. Time Out talks to both artists about an unlikely collaboration.

Mohammed Ali

"It came to Europe and spread like wildfire, I still remember the buzz", recalls Mohammed Ali. The British artist is referring to graffiti's arrival on the UK art scene 15 years ago, when it rode the coattails of hip hop and swept up young illustrators like Ali in its wake. "From those days I was always inspired by painting on the wall, the colours and the vibrancy and the impact of graffiti on others", Ali says. He was also drawn to graffiti as a public form of art, taking painting from pristine showrooms and relocating it to the streets.

As a UK-born Muslim deep in the grit of urban art, Ali didn't prioritise his religion. But, following a string of misfortunes, including a car crash, Ali found himself asking: "Are you here to eat sleep and die and that's it or is there a little more to it?" He discovered Islam was the "more" he was looking for. As Ali embraced Islam, he encountered Islamic calligraphy in the Koranic scriptures and this visual aspect of the religion appealed to Ali's artistic sensibility. I was fascinated by people representing their faith creatively," he says. "I've always been a creative person and I thought even in faith I'll be able to express myself".

Ali was able to unite his past as a secular graffiti artist with his newfound faith to create a contemporary spiritual art nicknamed calligraffiti. "Koranic scripts were traditionally written with ink, so why not write the same scripts with the tool of today, a spray can?" asks Ali. The artist believes calligraphy and graffiti are parallel forms of art: one is delivering the artist's own message, while the other is delivering the word of God. "Both are glorifying the written word," he says.

At the same time Ali discovered calligraffiti, he began to notice the work of Peter Sanders, a UK photographer who converted to Islam in the 1960s. "I've always been fascinated by his photographs depicting real, contemplative, spiritual imagery" he says.

When the artist finally met Sanders, the two decided to collaborate on a project around the theme of spreading the message of spirituality. Salam in the City, which translates as Peace in the City, was born. The title is a take on American sitcom Sex and the City, but instead of promoting liberated sexuality the two are promoting liberated spirituality. The only difference between the two artists, as Ali explains, is their methods: I'm capturing spirituality through a spray can instead of a camera lens."

Peter Sanders

Without realising it, you've probably already seen one of Peter Sanders' iconic images. Jagger pouting, Hendrix noodling, Morrison strutting: he was in the right place at the right time to capture some of the greatest figures of rock and roll just before they made it big. "They were the new musicians of that time: the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Doors, they were just bubbling under the surface," explains Peter of his time as an access-all-areas rock photographer. "They were my heroes and it was for an excuse to have a one-to-one with them that I shot them." But as the '60s meandered to its drug-fuelled, paranoid dénouement, Peter's life and work took another direction when he converted to Islam.

For the next 35 years he embarked on a very different assignment, travelling the Muslim world capturing what remained of traditional, almost-forgotten Islamic societies. "It's a very simple life devoted to prayer without the distractions of modern life," he says of the communities he encountered in Mauritania, Turkey and Yemen. "But I found the Muslim community in China fascinating. Islam there was really preserved, really pure. The conditions meant that it had been preserved from outside influence."

The romanticised Islamic ideal is a common theme throughout his work, and sits as a traditional counterweight to Mohammed Ali's calligraphic modernity. The two met during a project Peter was working on in the UK photographing third generation British Muslims, and was inspired by Mohammed's calligraffiti to collaborate with him. "Whereas Mohammed's work is quite modern and something new, mine is quite classical photography," he says. "?But I hope it carries a spiritual element to it, about an Islam that I'm very fond of and that I'm kind of mourning." Despite spending close to four decades eulogising the simple life found in China's Ningxia province or southern Yemen, Peter's next project is looking in the opposite direction and Dubai is likely to feature prominently. "My interest in the past few years has been showing modern Islamic societies like Malaysia and Oman, those that still hold to a traditional Islam. There's a teacher from Africa who said that Islam is like a pure river: it takes on the colour of the rocks on the riverbed. In China, Islam is Chinese, in Britain Islam is British. It will be interesting to see how Islam manifests itself in Dubai."

Salam in the City, Art Space (04 332 5523) Fairmont Hotel. Starts February 25.

Reference: http://www.timeoutdubai.com/thisweek/detail.php?id=603