Lara Baladi

Born in 1969 in Lebanon of Lebanese and Egyptian parents, Lara Baladi lived in Beirut, Paris and London before settling in Cairo in 1997. Drawing from the shifting borders of her identity, the artist has developed her work along her journeys and through the accumulation of images and photographs. In these installations, collages or video works, the visuals mix and recreate a hybrid universe where mythological references and symbolic systems meet, simultaneously borrowing from the Islamic heritage, Egyptian iconography and the popular or middle-class imagery. They illustrate the passage of time - the memory of the past, the trace of the present, the vision of the future - according to the personal anthropology of the artist who draws her inspiration from dreams and imagination.

The work of Lara Baladi has been very widely diffused on the international scene, from the Middle East to the United States, via Japan, Australia or Europe. Her work was also been shown in numerous major group shows such as in Africa Remix between 2004 and 2007, I-Dentity between 2005 and 2007, Snap Judgments between 2006 and 2008 and biennials; Sao Paulo in 2006, Sharjah in 2007, Cairo in 2009, Sidney in 2010. The artist, who lives and works in the Egyptian capital, received the critics’ acclaim during the Cairo Biennial, and the Grand Nile Prize for her "Borg El Amal" project (the Tower of Hope).