Creative Practice as Community Memory

For this edition of The Artist Series, I spoke with multidisciplinary artist and designer Limma Ali, a creative whose work is grounded in community, culture, and care. Her journey spans custom wedding stationery, murals, digital illustration, and community design collaborations, all deeply rooted in cultural identity, faith, and empowerment.

With over a decade of experience in the fashion industry, Limma is now preparing to leave her current role at Paul Smith to pursue her creative practice full-time. Her recent work includes contributions to community mural projects in East London and a personal illustrative series, My Local Mosque, which is still in its early stages. Whether designing for grassroots initiatives like Digital Sisterhood or planning place-based art rooted in cultural memory, Limma’s practice continues to evolve, always in conversation with the communities she cares most deeply about.

Creative identity & community inspiration

Limma prefers to be called a “creative” rather than a “painter,” reflecting the diversity of her work across painting, fashion, digital art, and design, however, what ties it all together is a commitment to community: a desire to tell real stories, represent shared identities, and work in collaboration with others who uplift their neighbourhoods and traditions.

“My art page is mostly driven by the community… I want to collaborate with people that empower our community.”

She draws inspiration from the women around her, especially those navigating multiple identities - Muslim, Bengali, British and sees her art as a way to honour their stories and preserve sacred intentions. “I always want barakah to be in whatever I’m doing. So inshallah, that pays off.”

My Local Mosque

One of Limma’s current personal series, My Local Mosque, offers a powerful example of her creative voice. Inspired by how some artists sketch their favourite locations, Limma applies this concept to mosques, drawing and painting them not just as buildings but as cultural and spiritual anchors. Her sketches often highlight small, local mosques that go unnoticed but have emotional weight for their communities. The project, I noted, aligns naturally with Mimbar360’s mission to reimagine and document sacred spaces.

Art as a Response to Isolation

Her motto, drawn from the Qur’an, continues to guide her:

فَإِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا ۝ إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا

“So, indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed with hardship comes ease (Qur’an 94:5–6).”

Limma’s journey into art grew from solitude. During the early lockdowns, she was isolated from her family and community, and her art became both a refuge and an affirmation of self. She continues to carry that spiritual ethos into her next chapter: launching her own creative business. “I was 250 miles away from my family… For three months, I hadn’t physically spoken to another human being. That was very difficult for me. So at that time, I went to art and that was for my safety.”

From Digital to Public: Creating the Shadwell Mural

One of Limma’s proudest works is a community mural on Dellow Street in Shadwell, a street where her aunt lived and where she spent many childhood summers. The area had long felt neglected, and the project commissioned by Trapped Zone One and Tower Hamlets Council was developed with feedback from Mulberry Girls School and the wider Bengali community.

She designed the piece digitally in Procreate using colour symbolism from the Bangladeshi flag, before translating it onto the wall with a team using gridding techniques and spray paint.

“It hasn’t been tagged once… That shows people are happy with it.”

I highlighted this as an excellent example of placemaking where art shifts how people relate to a space, improving not just how it looks, but how it feels.

Technical aspects of mural-making

From designing on Procreate to applying the final strokes with spray paint, Limma shared the steps involved in translating digital sketches into street-scale murals. Community consultation is key to her process.

“It’s asking them what kind of representation they want…”

She also reflected on how lighting affects her colour work, especially on canvas pieces involving skin tones explaining that what looks “right” at night may not translate the next morning under natural light.

Emotional Storytelling through commissioned work

Beyond murals, Limma has worked on many digital commissions including cover art for The Digital Sisterhood podcast. One project that stayed with her involved an episode on a Muslim woman’s struggle with her sexuality. “They’re giving up something so important for the sake of Allah… It made me think about things differently.” For this, she created a piece showing a woman staying afloat in water; a metaphor for survival, dignity, and faith.

Reimagining the mosques as social & spiritual hubs

When asked about mosque architecture, Limma spoke of her hope to see mosques with more warmth, personality, and intentionality; spaces that invite people to stay, not just pray. She praised the Cambridge Mosque for its atmosphere and called for more emotionally engaging, inclusive designs. “It’s got details that make it really nice to be around… You kind of want to hang out there… You want to be able to do that in the mosque. Sit there all day. You can read the books. You want to be there.”

Looking ahead: Role of creatives

Limma believes that artists and designers have a central role in mosque design both in layout and atmosphere. She referenced her husband’s childhood memories of mosques that offered more than prayer, acting as youth spaces and community hubs. “Same way how you make your living room and create zones… It's like creating those zones in the mosque. It wasn’t just like you go there, you pray… you do other activities.”

Limma expressed excitement about future collaborations with Mimbar360, especially around mosques that deserve more attention and care. Her Mosques Around London series may be the beginning of a much larger visual story still unfolding.