| My work is an ongoing process of accumulating, interpreting, and re-interpreting my archive of images, a broken and fragmented memory, which I try to “fix.” Whilst my name “Baladi” literally means in Arabic “my country,” a lack of roots is inherent to my identity. This absence, or perhaps abundance, of roots is at the core of my work. My family had to leave Lebanon and Egypt repeatedly over the last century. Thus, much of my work is characterized by a “puzzle” effect, which is a reflection of the multifaceted, constantly shifting, world I have lived in, and which my family has inhabited for generations. Photography is my primary tool, but the medium I choose for each project is an intrinsic part of the process by which my ideas are manifested. Like Russian dolls, the last work contains all the previous ones, sometimes naturally, other times by magic. |  |
Lara Baladi
My work is an ongoing process of accumulating, interpreting, and re-interpreting my archive of images, a broken and fragmented memory, which I try to “fix.”
Whilst my name “Baladi” literally means in Arabic “my country,” a lack of roots is inherent to my identity. This absence, or perhaps abundance, of roots is at the core of my work. My family had to leave Lebanon and Egypt repeatedly over the last century. Thus, much of my work is characterized by a “puzzle” effect, which is a reflection of the multifaceted, constantly shifting, world I have lived in, and which my family has inhabited for generations.
Photography is my primary tool, but the medium I choose for each project is an intrinsic part of the process by which my ideas are manifested. Like Russian dolls, the last work contains all the previous ones, sometimes naturally, other times by magic. It is an additive process; it is an addictive process.
My collages and digital montages, Oum el Dounia (2000), Perfumes & Bazaar (2006), are enactments of myths and archetypes I borrow then “customize” on such subjects as creation, paradise, or loss of paradise. I superimpose and intertwine layers of meaning, carefully selecting symbols and icons, guiding the viewer and sometimes intentionally losing the viewer in a multitude of potential narratives.
With Sandouk el Dounia (2001), which was staged, acted, and then exhibited in an abandoned pension in downtown Cairo, the viewer became part of my narratives as s/he wandered through a maze of corridors and rooms that led to a collage depicting a morality tale set in an archetypal modern city, a chaotic urban space—another maze.
Creating physical spaces and a more dynamic relationship with the viewer has become increasingly significant over the past few years. Roba Vecchia (2006), a time-based performance, is a life-size kaleidoscope in which flowing images are randomly selected by software and reflected in a mirror prism, as a constantly changing and mesmerizing series of “sacred” geometries. As the viewer enters the kaleidoscope, s/he is immersed in the imagery, thus becoming an inherent part of the work.
Most recently, the work in-situ Borg El Amal (Tower of Hope) was constructed (and destroyed) for the Cairo Biennale. I created a private space within a space, a temporary home of woven brick walls and cement foundations where the visitor could isolate him/herself and go inwards whilst listening to an especially composed donkey symphony. Borg El Amal is my most “baladi” work, meaning essentially locally symbolic.
In all my work, whether ephemeral or permanent, I look at the societies I am part of or that are around me, and try to relate them to my own personal experiences, without losing the color, flavors, poeticism, and often humor, that make them unique. I attempt to bridge the macrocosm of these worlds with the microcosm of my own life.
