Lara Baladi

Lara Baladi (b.1969) is an internationally recognized Egyptian-Lebanese multi-disciplinary artist, archivist and educator. Her artistic practice spans from photography, video, sculpture to architecture and multi-media installations. Through a process of investigation into archives and the study of popular culture iconography, while questioning memory, mythological, socio-political narratives and personal histories, her work examines the divide between fiction and reality and the cycles inherent to History. Baladi won the first prize (Grand Nile Award) at the Cairo Biennale in 2008-09 for her ephemeral construction and sound installation Borg El Amal (Arabic, The Tower of Hope).

For more than twenty years, Baladi has been on the Board of two of the most influential institutions in the Middle East, the Arab Image Foundation in Lebanon, and the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Egypt. In 2020, she joined the Board of directors of The Artists Sanctum, a cultural initiative supporting artists whose work contributes to social change. In 2015, she was the Ida Ely Artist in Residence at MIT/CAST. Since 2015, she has been a Lecturer in MIT’s Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In 2006, Baladi founded the artist residency Fenenin el Rehal (Arabic, Nomadic Artists) in Egypt’s White Desert.