Lara Baladi
| Lara Baladi | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1969 Beirut, Lebanon |
| Nationality | Egyptian-Lebanese |
| Known for | Photography, Installation, Film, Curator |
Lara Baladi (born 1969 in Beirut, Lebanon) is an acclaimedEgyptian-Lebanese photographer, archivist and multimedia artist. She was educated in Paris and London and currently lives in Cairo. Baladi exhibits and publishes worldwide. Her body of work encompasses photography, video, visual montages/collages, installations, architectural constructions, tapestries, sculptures and even perfume. Much of her work reflects her "concerns with Egypt's extremely alarming sociopolitical context."
Since 1997, she has been a member of the Arab Image Foundation (AIF), for which she directs magazine editorials and curates exhibitions and artist residencies.She curated the artist residency Fenenin el Rehal (Nomadic Artists) in the Libyan Desert in 2006 and participated in workshops and conferences around the world. Baladi is represented by the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo and IVDE Gallery in Dubai. Baladi received a Japan Foundation Fellowship in 2003 to research manga and anime in Tokyo. Among other global locations, she participated in the VASL residency program in Karachi, Pakistan in 2010. The breadth and variety of Baladi’s international experience influences her use of iconography drawn from numerous cultures.
In 2000, she participated in The Desert, a group exhibition at Fondation Cartier in Paris with Om El Dounia (Mother of the World), a vast mosaic of photographs with highly saturated colors. This piece, while playful and with many references to pop culture, is also an exploration of the Biblical story of creation.
In 2007, Baladi presented a work called Justice for the Mother, which depicts leaders of Arab countries. She considers it part of a series she calls "anthropological photography," where she assembles series of photographs that tell a larger story. In this piece, Baladi draws from influences from both Western and Islamic traditions, creating "fantastical, playful surveys of history, culture and personal reflection."
Sandouk el Dounia (The World in a Box), is a huge composition of hundreds of scanned photographs. The name of the piece references traditional street theater for children in Cairo.Sandouk was presented in 2009 at the Queens Museum of Art's group exhibition Tarjama/Translationand in 2011 at the Venice Biennial's group show Penelope’s Labor: Weaving Words and Images. Reviewers called it "a giant tapestry version of a photo collage packed with images of action heroines".
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