Lara Baladi & Eric Busch, Don’t Be Too Candid, 2018. Image courtesy of the artist.

Lara Baladi – Lecturer, 2015 – Present

Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi is internationally recognized for her multidisciplinary work. In her investigations into myths, archives, personal histories and socio-political narratives, Baladi makes use of a wide range of mediums including architecture, installations, photography, collage, tapestry, perfume and sculpture.

Lara Baladi, Watch Out for Zuzu, 2018. Watch out for Zuzu is a site specific media installation for Imagine Borders at the Gwangju Biennial. Image courtesy of the artist.

Vox Populi

During the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, Baladi co-founded Radio Tahrir and Tahrir Cinema. These platforms provided an alternative narrative to the one disseminated by State media. Her ongoing project Vox Populi includes a series of media initiatives, an open-source timeline that maps past and present global social movements, and a portal that archives data relating to the so-called 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

Transformative social movements reverberate thought history from the enlightenment periods French and American revolutions to the Arab spring and now popular uprisings in Chile, Lebanon, Hong Kong, and the United States.

In this time of political unrest on American soil, Lara’s insight into revolutionary movements and government response can provide American revolutionaries with a knowledge base of how revolutionary movements can build and succeed, and how they can fail.

Lara Baladi, Watch Out for Zuzu, 2018. Watch out for Zuzu is a site specific media installation for Revolutionize! at Mystetskyi Arsenal. Image courtesy of the artist.

Revolutionize!

Baladi took part in the 2018 show, Revolutionize! in Ukraine at the Mystetskyi arsenal in Kiev. Revolutionize! was an international research and exhibition project that brought together art and museum institutions from Ukraine and the Netherlands. 30 contemporary artists and art groups from 15 countries analyzed the social phenomenon of revolutions through artistic mediums including installation, painting, multimedia, photography, and video. The exhibition also presented artifacts from the National Museum of the Revolution of Dignity collection.