My conversation with multidisciplinary artist Lara Baladi

From documenting the 2011 revolution in Egypt and teaching at MIT to realigning her creative purpose and a near-fatal bike accident—multidisciplinary artist, archivist and educator Lara Baladi is my guest this month on the show.

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We talk about Lara’s big life pivots, the power of archiving history and finding peace through art and faith. We recorded this episode episode at Gypsum Gallery during Lara's solo exhibition Z for ZAFAFA, which ran until September 2026.

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This episode is also brought to you by Azza Fahmy Jewellery.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation next week, where we talk about her love for photography and what she’s working on next.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear from you. You can also leave us a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or on Instagram.

00:00 Coming up
03:38 Curating Two Exhibitions, Past and Present
14:21 Leaving Cairo behind
15:42 Reinvention, the art world, and MIT
22:19 Supporting a new generation
27:09 Lightning Round
29:19 A near-fatal accident

WEBVTT

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In a way, the MIT fellowship was a pause for you, right? To reconsider.

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No, pause at MIT, are you kidding? The pause was, so who am I in this moment

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where overnight the language of art has completely drastically changed?

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For me, the Zarafa is all about just slow movement.

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Did it cross your mind that this is a reflection maybe of where you are?

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I don't think about it as calm because I'm not a calm person.

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This episode is brought to you by EFG Hermes One Your one app for investing

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in more than 35 stock markets worldwide,

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This episode is also brought to you by Azza Fahmy Jewelry.

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I have known about you for a long time because we share a very good friend in

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common, who is Sarah Trad.

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Yes.

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Sarah Trad is an old childhood friend of mine, but more importantly for the

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show's purposes, she was one of my first ever guests on the show.

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Oh, amazing.

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As we were beginning the interview, we're still setting up and I'm checking

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the light on her side and I'm like, Sarah...

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This painting you have behind you is stunning. What is that?

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And she said, this is my very good friend, Lara Baladi. And it was a collage,

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from the revolution with the lions of Asr al-Nil.

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It was actually not from the revolution of 2011.

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It was a parody of the protests that we had in Tahrir in 2006 because of the

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war in the South in Lebanon.

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Ah, I see. And we were a very small group of people who went to Tahrir and got

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circled by three or four cordons of police.

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And then eventually they broke the gathering and everybody escaped and some people got arrested.

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You and I, I think we met this year.

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Yes, in a funny way.

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In a very funny way. You had an exhibition earlier this year at Tintera,

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which is an amazing photography gallery in Zamelik. I came in with my mother

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and we got the date wrong. Yes. So we came an entire week early.

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Yes. And we found you with all your works of art on the floor.

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You're figuring out where things are going and you're working out your spacing

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and you're doing all the curation.

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Yes. And you were so sweet because I would have gotten annoyed if someone had walked in on me.

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But you were so sweet because you showed us around and you explained to us and it was really nice.

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Yes, I loved your mother too. She was fantastic.

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I know. And in fact, there seems to have been also that she knew your family from a long time ago.

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It was like a gift because it was a week before the opening and we were,

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like you said, in the midst of the installation.

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and when you walked in and I had a little chat with you. First, you knew Sarah which was very sweet

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as she was actually coming a few days later to stay with me to see the show.

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And we went out for lunch together, all of us.

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Yes. And your mom and I started to talk and she asked me, Baladi,

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Baladi, who is Baladi? And then, did you know Ramez is Baladi? I said, yes, it's my dad.

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So she sounded like she knew my father.

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He lived in Saudi.

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He lived for 30 years in Saudi.

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That's when we met them, I think. It must have been from that time.

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Let's jump in. Yes. Because we've just had, you've given me my own private tour

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of the exhibition. At Gypsum.

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And I found it really, really impressive what you've done here,

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because it's not just a collection of works put on a wall.

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And it's the same with the Tintera show. You've got this ability to think of

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a theme or a really big concept.

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and you then, it's like you have a big picture idea in your head,

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and then you say, okay, how do I execute?

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And it's drilling down into details and different items and different mediums,

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and it can be overwhelming for someone to attend and look at it.

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I think it's something you have to see many times.

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Yes.

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And we're going to talk about this, which I bought the day of the exhibition.

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We're going to talk about this in a lot more detail.

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One of my new babies.

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I love this because...

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I'm so excited about it.

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And I loved it because it explains what you're doing.

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Yes, without being didactic.

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Exactly. You know, there's a history lesson going on here.

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There's a culture lesson. There's a lot going on. And I'm excited that it's not just one-off.

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You know, it started like a feuille de chou. You know what?

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A feuille de chou in French is just a pamphlet that you print and consume quickly.

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And then you drop it in the bin.

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And it started because it was an inspiration of a feuille de chou that was

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published in the era of the giraffe offered by Muhammad Ali to France.

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And the title was La Giraffe. And it was like a little poem about the giraffe

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and a little quick explanation of what the giraffe was.

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Since it was the first time a giraffe stepped on the floor of Europe,

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it was very, of course, very beautiful. 200 years ago, the way they used to

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print and the illustration was lovely.

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And it was very detailed.

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And so I always kept that image on the side thinking, what am I going to do with this?

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And I thought I'll publish something that you open it, you close it,

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and then you throw it away. But of course, I don't know how to do it.

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And it grew, right? The concept of this alone grew into something else, right? Yes.

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I mean, I hate to ask an artist about their process.

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But I am curious, how do you come up with... how did you come up with the idea

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for this exhibition? Because,

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It's very different to what you had exhibited in Tintera a few months ago. Yes.

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Explain to me why, first of all, you chose to do two exhibitions in the same year, same city.

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One is at Tintera, the photography gallery.

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And here at Gypsum is one of the leading contemporary galleries in the Middle

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East. What is the rationale for you? What was going through your head?

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Two exhibitions, one year. Tell me about that.

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I came back to live in Cairo after nine years living in the U.S., three years ago.

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And at first, I wasn't sure I was going to stay here. But very quickly,

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with what happened in Gaza, two months, not even two months later,

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I knew, khalas, I'm going to settle here because the next place is going to be Lebanon.

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So instead of considering going to Beirut, I just decided to settle back in

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Cairo, where at the end of the day, I'm familiar.

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I know how to... I know more or less because things change over nine years,

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but at least I understand the culture. I know how to move around.

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And I also have produced so many works here.

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I also have a history with it. But what I also knew was that things have changed

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a lot over those nine years,

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that the region had completely expanded in terms of where contemporary art really is taking place.

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what kind of dynamics are taking place between different parts of the region,

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and also how the center has shifted.

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So from the Emirates, actually from Lebanon, Cairo, Jerusalem,

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to the Emirates, and then to Saudi.

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And then to Saudi as well, yeah.

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So I also hadn't been exhibiting for nine years in Cairo because of the nature

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of the work I have been doing over that time, which was looking at protests,

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history of protests, revolutions and revolts across the world.

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And I was aware that this was a no-no subject, nowhere in the region.

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So my work got slightly kind of, by default, got kind of put on the side somehow.

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And when I came back, I thought what would be really amazing is not so satisfying

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to have a small exhibition, but really to have, like, and this was an inspiration by Martin Parr, who

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one time in his life had exhibitions in lots of different galleries at once.

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My plan was to have three shows. It turned out I had two. But the idea was to

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go from a little bit from the past and where I left when I left Cairo and then

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bring people into my work all the way to what I'm doing today

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which is where we are here at Gypsum now. And

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it's a nice... for the viewer or the gallery goer,

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to see that. To see where you were when you were last in Egypt,

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which for me was the Tintera exhibition.

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Yes, exactly.

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And then today, seeing what there is here in Gypsum. There's a natural continuity.

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It's clear it's the same artist, but it's a very different world.

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Okay, I'm glad you can say this because I feel they're two completely different worlds.

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Especially when you're focusing on, you know, I've done so many large-scale

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installations when I was in Egypt, the Kaleidoscope and the big Borg el-Amal

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that was at the Cairo Biennale,

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like all these huge works, of course, cannot be re-shown in the context of a gallery. Of course.

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So, it's interesting that you see the connection between the two shows.

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What I wanted to do was, I think, also show things that I've never shown before

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and show my work in a way that I've never shown before.

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So, even though there are works I've done years ago, I feel the show at Tintera is a little…

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It's kind of an invitation for a much bigger show that will include larger works

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and also kind of expand on the

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things I couldn't show at Tintera because I have so much more material.

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So that's my hope with that exhibition. And then I stopped, in terms of time,

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I stopped with a piece from 2011.

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And then here I'm looking at, not necessarily 2011, as much as the history of

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global protests really, but inspired by Tahrir, of course. I want to

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just jump in for a minute and look at something we talked about in the other

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room where we were going through the pieces, migration, displacement.

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Are you sort of looking back a little bit at your own journey?

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Because you can think of it with a parallel there.

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You're exhibiting... you're using the Zarafa, the giraffe as a metaphor for movement.

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The movement of people, the displacement of people from their country,

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from their land into another place. But this is your own journey as well, was

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the same. Yes. Are you kind of at a stage in life now where you're.. maybe

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looking back a little bit at your own journey and you're interpreting it this way?

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You know, it's interesting to think about this because it's always,

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you know, the egg and the chicken, you know, so which one starts first.

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But I feel it's not so, I mean, maybe in the work in Tintera,

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I was much more like, I was much more troubled in those years.

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So I was doing things that were more about also about my own growth and my own

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experience and my very visceral experience.

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So, I mean, there's images in the show in Tintera that are very bodily and very

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passionate somehow. Now, I think I'm in a very different place.

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And I don't really see my own life necessarily as a source of inspiration for

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works. I'm not that interested in the personal in that sense.

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But I also think that you don't run away from yourself. and whatever you are,

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for whatever reason that this Zarafa inspired me, there must have been something

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in it that I could identify to.

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I think as we age, at least I notice this, and I'm noticing it in the last two,

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three years in myself, I want a slower pace of life.

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I want things to be at a calmer level.

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And for me, the Zarafa is all about just slow movement.

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And this exhibition, when you look at the pieces, there's a sense of calmness,

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even though you're talking about some pretty deep issues, displacement and migration,

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but there is a calmness to it.

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The embroidered piece by Threads of Hope.

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Embroidery has a feeling of patience and calmness. Did it cross your mind that

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this is a reflection maybe of where you are?

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I don't think about it as calm because I'm not a calm person.

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That's not how you would define me usually. I'm always agitated.

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And in fact, the last four or five months, I've been working in average 15 hours a day.

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At the end, it was 17 hours.

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For this exhibition or for the two?

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For everything, because I was also full-time teaching. So no,

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it's been insane, really.

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So there's nothing calm about any of this. However, I would use the word peace. Okay.

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I feel much more grounded than I ever was in myself. I feel much more aligned somehow.

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I know myself better than the person who did the work that's exhibited at the Tintera show.

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I've been through very difficult moments in my life and it has changed me radically.

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So I think that's what you're feeling.

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And maybe the move here was the right move. It allowed you to have this feeling of peace.

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I went to the U.S. slightly catapulted. You know, I was like,

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just go and see what happens.

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And I came back, same thing. Go and see what happens, you know, you'll

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figure it out. I've moved a lot in my life, but in a different way.

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But these particular moves I've done in a way because I had to leave,

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not because I had to go somewhere.

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Because you didn't want to leave, but you had to leave.

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No, I had to leave. I felt I wanted to leave because I felt I had to leave.

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I felt it was a survival decision. It was 2014, post-2011, 2013.

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And I felt if I stay in Cairo, I'm going to get comfortable or depressed.

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Maybe both are the same. I'm not sure. But I felt that I wasn't going to learn

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anything and I wasn't going to be pushed.

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And I felt that I really also needed to leave this whole revolution behind because

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I had been very, very involved.

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And it was really tough to see the devastation of a lot of the things that I was familiar with.

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And the trajectory of where things were going,

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right? Yes. I mean, the whole landscape of art completely shifted.

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at the time it was more music and video so actual visual arts kind of made no sense. The

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medium itself was

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changing. You know, yes, the installation, the whole idea of what we do as visual

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artists was kind of, like, khalas it doesn't really work. Right. That's not the language

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we need now. Okay. So, there was like a moment of shift.

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So in a way the MIT fellowship was a pause for you, right? To reconsider.

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No, pause at MIT, are you kidding?

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No, but I mean, it allowed you to exit the

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world you had been in and and rethink where is my next step.

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Well, I intentionally did this. Like, I went to MIT to do a fellowship about new

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media and storytelling and I wanted to leave a little bit art somewhere behind because I was...

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I was feeling very frustrated about what was happening in Egypt politically,

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but also with the art scene.

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And I was also very frustrated about what was happening in the Emirates,

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where I had been showing for a very long time.

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But I also felt that there was a disconnect between the countries that had experienced

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revolutions and this whole La La Land that was growing on this other side. So there was a real...

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But was your work being appreciated there?

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Oh, yeah. I'm one of the first artists who showed in the Emirates.

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Also, my big installation, Roba Vecchia, the giant kaleidoscope,

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was under the Emirate Towers in the first Gulf, what they called Gulf Art Fair,

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and then it became Art Dubai.

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And I had a representation there. I showed in Sharjah. I mean,

00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:17.540
I had a lot of… But you were uncomfortable.

00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:25.750
I was very uncomfortable. I was in 2012, 2013, I had a little bit of a crisis when I was there.

00:17:26.150 --> 00:17:27.930
And I felt I have to get out of here.

00:17:27.930 --> 00:17:29.740
In what way, Lara? Explain it to me.

00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:35.000
I felt, you know, the whole capitalist revolution disconnect.

00:17:35.360 --> 00:17:39.230
You know, I was just coming out of living in the street for a year and a half,

00:17:39.230 --> 00:17:44.530
of experiencing the Egyptian revolution, of seeing what is happening around in the

00:17:44.530 --> 00:17:47.260
region, of being incredibly involved.

00:17:47.260 --> 00:17:51.400
It was, you know, it was scary and it was.. it was really tough and a lot of people

00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:55.420
died and a lot of people got hurt and and we knew each of them.

00:17:55.420 --> 00:17:59.840
And, you know, so suddenly to be in Dubai and like people having the problem

00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:03.520
that they didn't know what to wear for the opening and the designer they had

00:18:03.730 --> 00:18:08.340
who was supposed to do a dress for them was late or, you know, I just heard things.

00:18:08.340 --> 00:18:10.940
I just I couldn't cope. I was just like, get me out of here.

00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:12.180
Things came to a head.

00:18:12.330 --> 00:18:17.580
Yes, everything I built for 10 years sort of went to kind of a dead end.

00:18:18.200 --> 00:18:24.110
And I felt I need to reinvent myself. So this is when the opportunity at MIT

00:18:24.110 --> 00:18:27.130
came. I applied for this fellowship.

00:18:27.620 --> 00:18:35.010
And I felt this is going to give me an opening into this world that is also emerging at the time.

00:18:35.410 --> 00:18:40.080
It was the early days of what we call new media. And I felt I need to know a

00:18:40.080 --> 00:18:41.420
little bit about all these things.

00:18:41.420 --> 00:18:47.010
And also very specifically, the idea was that I had built Tahrir Archives, that

00:18:47.010 --> 00:18:51.340
I already had three years in the making of the archive that is called Tahrir Archives.

00:18:51.870 --> 00:18:59.030
And I wanted to give back this archive. And I thought when I go to MIT and study

00:19:01.110 --> 00:19:07.530
these different new forms of expression, maybe this will give me a way of doing that.

00:19:08.610 --> 00:19:09.910
So that was a goal.

00:19:09.910 --> 00:19:14.260
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What was the fellowship like?

00:19:45.810 --> 00:19:51.810
It was amazing because it was, as I could, It was almost like two lines following

00:19:51.810 --> 00:19:55.540
each other. One was going down and the other one was going up like this.

00:19:55.840 --> 00:19:59.850
So the line going down was my life in Cairo was kind of slowly,

00:19:59.850 --> 00:20:01.600
gradually kind of ending.

00:20:02.110 --> 00:20:10.140
While my life in Boston at MIT, in Cambridge was beginning and I was being welcomed

00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:11.840
from every single corner.

00:20:11.840 --> 00:20:13.240
How old were you at that point?

00:20:13.560 --> 00:20:18.070
It was 2014. How old was I? I don't know how old you are.

00:20:18.110 --> 00:20:21.720
I don't know if I can count. More or less.

00:20:22.370 --> 00:20:25.740
You were what? In your late 30s, early 40s?

00:20:28.330 --> 00:20:31.090
Maybe I was, yeah, early 40s. Early 40s? Mid 40s.

00:20:31.090 --> 00:20:32.300
Okay, okay, yeah.

00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:34.270
Something like that.

00:20:34.270 --> 00:20:37.230
So that's interesting. But that's an interesting time for a woman,

00:20:37.230 --> 00:20:41.440
right? Yes. I think it's a moment where a lot of women kind of pause and,

00:20:42.190 --> 00:20:44.520
kind of reflect on where they want to go next.

00:20:45.170 --> 00:20:47.140
No, I had already had that moment before.

00:20:48.100 --> 00:20:51.700
But there's no such thing as having it only one time. It can happen again, right?

00:20:51.700 --> 00:20:54.860
I had that moment before, like specifically as a woman.

00:20:54.860 --> 00:20:58.960
Like, what do I want to do as a woman? That happened when my father was dying

00:20:59.390 --> 00:21:07.270
and I was 38. And I knew that, you know, maybe I should ask myself if I want children or not. Right.

00:21:07.860 --> 00:21:11.830
Because I never really, like, it wasn't necessarily my goal.

00:21:11.830 --> 00:21:14.980
Yes. It was not something I was against, but it was never my...

00:21:15.020 --> 00:21:16.840
It wasn't a burning desire.

00:21:16.840 --> 00:21:21.660
No, no. My burning desire was always to make art. Yes. I was always like...

00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:25.320
Do you think that, like a lot of artists say and writers say that too,

00:21:25.320 --> 00:21:27.970
you can't be a mother and an artist?

00:21:27.970 --> 00:21:30.220
No, no, no. You can be everything. Do you think you can do those?

00:21:30.300 --> 00:21:33.370
Of course. Of course. Just look around you. There's millions of examples.

00:21:33.370 --> 00:21:35.000
You made a conscious choice?

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:38.240
I don't think I made a choice. I think life is the way it is.

00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:44.240
And I didn't meet the right partner, I wasn't maybe the right partner,

00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:48.490
I don't know, but I also wasn't really making this my objective,

00:21:48.490 --> 00:21:52.040
so maybe I didn't focus on that specifically...

00:21:52.870 --> 00:21:54.780
And now, looking back, do you regret that?

00:21:55.120 --> 00:21:56.510
No. You don't? No.

00:21:56.510 --> 00:21:57.670
Well, then there's your answer.

00:21:57.670 --> 00:22:01.210
Then it worked out. I never regretted that at all.

00:22:01.210 --> 00:22:07.390
Well, that's very good. I did feel, interestingly, in the revolution, I mean, the

00:22:07.990 --> 00:22:15.890
uprising. In the uprising, I was older than the new, young generation of students

00:22:15.890 --> 00:22:19.400
and artists that were leading or taking to the streets.

00:22:19.990 --> 00:22:26.600
And I also that archive kind of came out of observing that new voice that was

00:22:26.600 --> 00:22:30.410
coming out, that very creative voice that was coming out of this new generation.

00:22:31.400 --> 00:22:35.900
And also this new language that they were coming with. I got very involved in

00:22:35.900 --> 00:22:42.520
supporting a lot of projects. So I supported Radio Tahrir, I supported Tahrir

00:22:42.520 --> 00:22:45.620
Cinema. I was very much at the forefront of that.

00:22:47.370 --> 00:22:53.840
I led a lot of workshops. I did a lot of things with the younger generation. Very,

00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:59.350
very respectfully of them and very impressed with their creative midset. Did you feel motherly towards them?

00:22:59.870 --> 00:23:06.220
No, I wouldn't say motherly, but I would say... I felt, on the contrary, I felt I was learning

00:23:06.220 --> 00:23:08.460
a lot and I felt, oh my God, where am I?

00:23:08.460 --> 00:23:14.070
Because what do I become? Now that this new generation is coming. And so, it was

00:23:14.070 --> 00:23:17.080
an interesting moment. This is where the pause was, not MIT.

00:23:17.090 --> 00:23:23.590
The pause was, so who am I in this moment where overnight the language of art

00:23:23.590 --> 00:23:25.960
has completely drastically changed?

00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:33.570
And for me, I'm coming from that moment where we take time to think of things and we build something.

00:23:33.970 --> 00:23:39.890
But did that realization that there was a new wave coming and that you were

00:23:39.890 --> 00:23:44.360
not of that wave, did that scare you or did it make you want to

00:23:45.270 --> 00:23:50.260
jump in and learn something new? Because obviously, MIT is that next step for

00:23:50.260 --> 00:23:53.530
you, where you're trying to learn what is this new world all about?

00:23:53.670 --> 00:23:57.980
I jumped in immediately, regardless of any. That was my instinct.

00:23:58.380 --> 00:24:03.190
I jumped in fully, completely, utterly, in the first moment and that was it.

00:24:03.190 --> 00:24:04.330
I couldn't get out again.

00:24:04.950 --> 00:24:08.520
But I jumped in for a different reason. It's because I saw something,

00:24:08.520 --> 00:24:14.250
and I'm going to jump subject here, but I saw a video and the video hooked me.

00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:21.920
And the video was of a tank, the Egyptian tank man. Basically, the young men

00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:27.850
who was, like this in front of a water cannon of the police.

00:24:28.350 --> 00:24:38.240
And seeing that, of course, woke up my memory of Tank Man in Tiananmen in China in '89.

00:24:39.320 --> 00:24:44.920
And I realized in that moment that there was something repeated in history.

00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:50.100
And I felt hooked to that. And I felt that the story of Egypt was interesting,

00:24:50.100 --> 00:24:51.360
but it wasn't the only story.

00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:56.150
And that the story was much bigger. And that was it. That was for me the pause.

00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:00.920
But the language that emerged in that moment was the language of this new generation

00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:04.630
and this new.. and not only of citizens who were incredibly creative.

00:25:04.990 --> 00:25:10.120
So I started to collect that because as the person I am, I cannot create overnight.

00:25:10.120 --> 00:25:13.300
It takes me a long time to do things and I need to gather.

00:25:13.800 --> 00:25:18.140
I need to reflect. I need to gather things. I'm very spontaneous in a lot of moments

00:25:18.140 --> 00:25:21.530
in the process but not in, you know, I'm not a...

00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:23.710
I'm not a graffiti artist.

00:25:23.710 --> 00:25:29.900
No, and the gathering process for you was just instinctive to gather,

00:25:29.900 --> 00:25:31.560
but you didn't know where it was going to take you.

00:25:31.770 --> 00:25:34.830
No, I wasn't going anywhere. For me, it was... You're just collecting.

00:25:35.110 --> 00:25:38.470
For me, it was, how do I make sense of what's happening? Because right now,

00:25:38.470 --> 00:25:41.370
nothing makes sense, and nobody knew really what was going on.

00:25:41.370 --> 00:25:44.810
At the time, things were not the way we understand them today.

00:25:44.810 --> 00:25:45.910
They were one minute at a...

00:25:46.410 --> 00:25:54.400
it was minute by minute, moment to moment. And I also felt like all of this was incredibly fast.

00:25:54.760 --> 00:25:58.390
The only way for me to make sense of it was to keep track of things.

00:25:58.390 --> 00:26:03.560
So I kept track of things, but knowing that I wouldn't digest them immediately.

00:26:03.560 --> 00:26:04.350
Yes, of course.

00:26:04.490 --> 00:26:08.010
So the idea was just eventually, I'll make sense of this.

00:26:08.010 --> 00:26:10.070
But keep it on the side for now.

00:26:10.070 --> 00:26:15.710
Yes. So, I mean, I did this in a very non-system,

00:26:18.630 --> 00:26:19.460
without a framework.

00:26:19.460 --> 00:26:20.330
Without planning.

00:26:20.910 --> 00:26:23.770
Absolutely. It was more instinctive. And so, at the beginning,

00:26:23.770 --> 00:26:25.850
I was copying links from Google.

00:26:26.210 --> 00:26:29.500
I was just copying the link to a video, copying the link to an article.

00:26:29.500 --> 00:26:33.530
And then I had this word doc that had all these different signs.

00:26:33.770 --> 00:26:37.620
You just saved everything. Yeah, it was just one blue blurb of letters following

00:26:37.620 --> 00:26:40.350
each other. And it was really funny because it just didn't make sense anymore.

00:26:40.780 --> 00:26:42.910
But then when I realized two months

00:26:42.910 --> 00:26:47.240
in the making that I was creating an archive, I did it intentionally.

00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:54.390
And then, I became very proactive in terms of searching for data and researching

00:26:55.090 --> 00:26:59.530
what I was seeing and getting more information about what I was actually collecting.

00:26:59.800 --> 00:27:06.630
While I was going constantly to the [Tahrir] square and documenting also the battles and the walks.

00:27:10.020 --> 00:27:13.770
I always end the interviews with what I call the lightning round.

00:27:13.770 --> 00:27:16.200
Oh, the surprise questions. Exactly.

00:27:16.700 --> 00:27:20.620
But it's just fun. It's just very light. If you had 25 hours in a day,

00:27:20.620 --> 00:27:22.630
how would you spend that extra hour?

00:27:23.010 --> 00:27:23.790
I would pray.

00:27:24.040 --> 00:27:25.320
Are you a religious person?

00:27:25.840 --> 00:27:30.660
I don't like that word. You're spiritual. I don't like that word either.

00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:31.480
Why?

00:27:31.820 --> 00:27:32.510
I'm a believer.

00:27:32.780 --> 00:27:33.510
You're a believer.

00:27:33.510 --> 00:27:33.960
Yes.

00:27:33.960 --> 00:27:39.220
You're a believer in what? In God. In God. Old-fashioned darkroom or digital all the way?

00:27:39.470 --> 00:27:40.050
Both.

00:27:40.650 --> 00:27:42.380
Why? What do they each give you?

00:27:42.580 --> 00:27:48.770
One grounds me in the materiality of things and of images in particular.

00:27:49.390 --> 00:27:53.530
And the other gives the possibility of movement and freedom.

00:27:53.660 --> 00:27:56.820
Nice. Looking ahead, what are you most excited about?

00:27:57.010 --> 00:28:00.600
I'm most excited about my next artwork.

00:28:00.910 --> 00:28:05.130
I want to hear about this when we end. What are you most concerned about when you look ahead?

00:28:05.600 --> 00:28:06.720
My next artwork.

00:28:09.080 --> 00:28:10.750
So this sounds to me like a true

00:28:10.750 --> 00:28:14.000
artist. If the question is about my life... It can be about anything you want. If

00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:16.670
you're asking me about the world, it's a whole different story. I'm

00:28:16.670 --> 00:28:18.910
asking you about whatever comes to

00:28:18.910 --> 00:28:24.020
mind. For my life personally and my little world, my next concern is... This is what you're focused on. Yes. Ok.

00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:27.940
If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?

00:28:29.460 --> 00:28:34.830
So many. Two of them. I would be a singing doctor

00:28:36.490 --> 00:28:37.420
How would that work?

00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:45.470
Well, I would be very good at my profession, and I would save people from dying.

00:28:45.910 --> 00:28:48.490
And I would also have a fantastic voice.

00:28:48.640 --> 00:28:50.150
So you'd be singing to the patient?

00:28:50.150 --> 00:28:53.040
No. Maybe in some cases.

00:28:53.220 --> 00:28:55.990
You never know. What's your favorite activity?

00:28:57.390 --> 00:28:58.610
My favorite activity?

00:28:58.610 --> 00:29:00.300
Yeah. What's your favorite activity?

00:29:01.780 --> 00:29:03.270
Well, I guess taking photographs.

00:29:03.450 --> 00:29:06.120
Okay. Yeah. So it's nice that it's also your profession.

00:29:06.530 --> 00:29:06.930
Yes.

00:29:07.050 --> 00:29:08.700
I mean, you're doing what you love.

00:29:08.700 --> 00:29:10.470
Oh, yeah. Okay. Absolutely.

00:29:10.940 --> 00:29:13.190
I'm going to say a sentence and you end it.

00:29:13.190 --> 00:29:13.520
Yes.

00:29:13.520 --> 00:29:14.730
I get joy from.

00:29:15.220 --> 00:29:19.400
Okay. I get joy from praying.

00:29:19.940 --> 00:29:24.140
Okay. Were you always a big believer?

00:29:24.580 --> 00:29:30.380
No, because it seems to me that in the post-revolution period, it was very dark.

00:29:30.690 --> 00:29:31.340
What was dark?

00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:38.350
The atmosphere or your experience of those years was very dark.

00:29:38.350 --> 00:29:39.100
Not really.

00:29:39.620 --> 00:29:40.200
It wasn't?

00:29:40.200 --> 00:29:45.670
It was, but it was also full of promise. It was also magical.

00:29:45.670 --> 00:29:49.730
It was also encountering so many people.

00:29:49.730 --> 00:29:51.260
No, I mean the period when you left.

00:29:52.470 --> 00:29:56.070
Oh, that was very heartbreaking. Exactly. Of course, yes.

00:29:56.070 --> 00:29:59.400
And how did faith work

00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:00.030
for you then?

00:30:01.020 --> 00:30:02.420
That's why I'm still alive.

00:30:03.330 --> 00:30:03.850
Okay.

00:30:04.020 --> 00:30:07.720
Interesting. That's why I'm still alive. I've always believed,

00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:12.370
since I'm a child, it was never about religion. It was more about me having

00:30:12.370 --> 00:30:15.690
conversations with God. I think that's the best way. Since I was a child.

00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:22.560
Because I was not really educated in a religious environment at all. It wasn't like that.

00:30:22.990 --> 00:30:27.770
But I don't know. I think it's grace, you know, to have faith and to have that sense of...

00:30:28.190 --> 00:30:28.990
A higher being.

00:30:29.130 --> 00:30:32.700
I don't even know how to explain it because I don't really think about it necessarily.

00:30:32.700 --> 00:30:38.580
But if I have to think about it and remember as a child, like when I first had

00:30:38.580 --> 00:30:42.810
faith or first had a conversation with God, I was maybe seven.

00:30:42.810 --> 00:30:44.460
Yeah. Are you an only child?

00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:44.860
No.

00:30:45.200 --> 00:30:46.130
You have brothers and sisters.

00:30:46.130 --> 00:30:47.250
I have an older sister.

00:30:47.250 --> 00:30:48.050
An older sister.

00:30:48.050 --> 00:30:54.530
But I always talk to God. That was my place to go as a child.

00:30:54.800 --> 00:30:58.350
I just never understood really how to stay with God.

00:30:58.610 --> 00:30:59.110
Right.

00:30:59.320 --> 00:31:03.140
So I wasn't like a practitioner of any religion.

00:31:04.130 --> 00:31:08.290
But I believed, and I believed in Jesus, and I believed... I spoke to,

00:31:08.290 --> 00:31:10.690
you know, I spoke to Mary, to Jesus, to God.

00:31:10.690 --> 00:31:17.400
And all my life, I needed to have a very strong relationship with God because

00:31:17.400 --> 00:31:23.440
I knew that there was something that I could get closer to, and I didn't know how.

00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:26.520
So I looked all over the world in all kinds of ways.

00:31:27.510 --> 00:31:34.000
But the moment of truth came when I had this almost fatal accident in Cambridge.

00:31:34.500 --> 00:31:38.140
Tell me about that. In 2016, I got run over by a truck.

00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:42.850
How, Lara? How did that happen? I was going to ask you what this was.

00:31:42.850 --> 00:31:45.090
I can see it on your arm. What happened?

00:31:45.790 --> 00:31:51.000
Well, I was biking to MIT and a truck right-hooked me.

00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:55.730
And then I fell in front of the truck and he ran over my body for like 10 meters,

00:31:56.080 --> 00:32:01.140
dragged me on the floor, hence this scar, and completely broken from here to here.

00:32:01.140 --> 00:32:06.450
I had the sternum broken. I had six ribs broken. I had the punctuated lung.

00:32:06.450 --> 00:32:08.930
I mean, I was broken. I had a lot of broken bones.

00:32:09.040 --> 00:32:11.490
And it took a long, long time to recover.

00:32:11.650 --> 00:32:12.660
Physically to recover?

00:32:12.660 --> 00:32:14.610
It took me four and a half years to recover.

00:32:15.210 --> 00:32:16.300
With physiotherapy?

00:32:16.700 --> 00:32:18.660
With everything. I went full on.

00:32:19.620 --> 00:32:21.300
Did you see a therapist emotionally?

00:32:21.300 --> 00:32:22.530
Oh, I saw a lot of people.

00:32:22.530 --> 00:32:24.780
I'm sure. I saw everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:26.120 --> 00:32:30.860
I was seeing lawyers, therapists, acupuncturists, name it, you know.

00:32:30.860 --> 00:32:35.230
But what happened while we are talking about this is because when I got run

00:32:35.230 --> 00:32:42.800
over, I lost consciousness and I went to a place and it was incredible.

00:32:43.370 --> 00:32:43.880
Really?

00:32:44.380 --> 00:32:47.960
Yeah, it was joy. That's so interesting. You're asking me about joy.

00:32:47.960 --> 00:32:49.570
Well, it was, that was pure joy.

00:32:50.220 --> 00:32:52.000
Like you had an out-of-body experience.

00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:56.210
Maybe. Maybe it's that. Maybe. I don't know what to call it.

00:32:56.210 --> 00:33:00.220
But I think it's... trauma people will tell you this is a very...

00:33:01.420 --> 00:33:02.190
It's quite common.

00:33:02.190 --> 00:33:05.760
It's very common in a trauma to kind of escape and go somewhere.

00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:13.840
And I went to an extraordinary place that felt like a garden, but it was not visual.

00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:18.240
It was more the sensation. It's more of a feeling. Yeah, it was more about being

00:33:19.700 --> 00:33:23.040
in a sense, in a garden, but it didn't matter what it looked like.

00:33:23.540 --> 00:33:26.660
And the people around me were incredibly trustworthy.

00:33:26.980 --> 00:33:27.950
Were they people you knew?

00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:34.120
It seemed I did, but they knew me maybe better than I knew them.

00:33:34.580 --> 00:33:39.770
And I felt... it was like a family, but like a spiritual family.

00:33:41.230 --> 00:33:44.430
What would you call it? A celestial family. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

00:33:44.430 --> 00:33:47.230
yeah. A celestial family. And it was so true.

00:33:47.230 --> 00:33:52.190
I've read so much about people who've had this experience. It's a very common thing.

00:33:52.190 --> 00:33:55.260
I mean, I came back, I had a smile like to both my ears.

00:33:55.260 --> 00:33:58.220
This is a major turning point for you.

00:33:58.370 --> 00:34:04.330
Yeah. This accident. Well, the turning point is I went into a quest for,

00:34:05.080 --> 00:34:08.610
okay, I've attracted that in my life. I don't think this is random.

00:34:08.610 --> 00:34:11.610
I mean, this happened to me, so something's not well.

00:34:11.630 --> 00:34:14.290
You think that this is something you attracted?

00:34:14.870 --> 00:34:18.950
At the time, I believed that I opened the door.

00:34:19.870 --> 00:34:23.580
But the accident, it's a fluke. It's not something you attracted.

00:34:24.810 --> 00:34:27.130
Yes, maybe. Depends how you think of the world.

00:34:27.510 --> 00:34:28.750
You feel that you are responsible for this?

00:34:29.290 --> 00:34:32.570
I wasn't responsible as in I was wrong in how I was biking.

00:34:33.130 --> 00:34:36.860
I feel that I was in a part of my life where I was very dark.

00:34:37.350 --> 00:34:43.710
And I was not turning my face to Jesus, to God. And I was pretty much not really

00:34:43.710 --> 00:34:45.330
interested in being here, really.

00:34:46.310 --> 00:34:48.350
I was like, what am I doing here? Whatever.

00:34:49.630 --> 00:34:54.650
You know, it hurt. I was grieving the revolution. I was grieving Egypt.

00:34:55.060 --> 00:34:58.490
I was exiled. I was far from my family.

00:34:58.850 --> 00:35:04.230
I have, you know, I was in a new academic environment that I had to,

00:35:04.690 --> 00:35:06.430
like... You had to relearn a lot of things.

00:35:06.530 --> 00:35:10.760
I had to learn everything from scratch. I had to redo my whole life.

00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:12.730
You know, I left my entire life behind.

00:35:13.090 --> 00:35:16.510
It was horrible. Yes, yes, yes, yes. On a certain level, it was hard.

00:35:16.510 --> 00:35:17.650
Of course, of course. And you're alone.

00:35:17.820 --> 00:35:20.950
And I was alone. And, I mean, I was, yeah, I was alone in the sense,

00:35:20.950 --> 00:35:24.760
I don't have a family, I don't have a husband, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I was...

00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:30.450
You know, I was really like, what do I need now? I don't really need much, you know, anymore.

00:35:31.110 --> 00:35:34.770
So, but I was never suicidal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be clear.

00:35:34.770 --> 00:35:38.990
That's not who I am. Yeah. But I was sad. Yes, yes. I think I was grieving.

00:35:38.990 --> 00:35:41.280
There was something broken. There was something broken.

00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:45.880
Yes. And my grandmother died also. My grandmother was 20 years of my life in

00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:48.890
Egypt, very much part of my creativity.

00:35:49.240 --> 00:35:54.820
She supported my art. She saw all my friends and my gallerists and everybody.

00:35:55.210 --> 00:35:59.240
Every Sunday... there was a world around her.

00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:00.970
A warmth of the family warmth.

00:36:00.970 --> 00:36:02.520
Yeah, it was my anchor in Cairo.

00:36:02.960 --> 00:36:05.520
What did you learn from it? I mean, what is your...

00:36:06.040 --> 00:36:10.230
What I learned is that I can't go dark anymore.

00:36:10.230 --> 00:36:13.590
And you cannot get on a bike anymore, Lara. Let's be honest.

00:36:13.590 --> 00:36:15.500
I don't want to get on a bike anymore.

00:36:15.500 --> 00:36:16.440
No more bikes for you.

00:36:17.620 --> 00:36:22.370
I'm pretty clumsy. That's what I learned. But I did get back on a bike,

00:36:22.370 --> 00:36:25.850
but I wouldn't. And for example, I see people biking here without a helmet.

00:36:25.850 --> 00:36:27.560
I think they're nuts. I mean, it's insane.

00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:32.990
I mean, every step of the way of this accident, I was protected.

00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:37.080
It was clear, you know, like not just one thing happened.

00:36:37.080 --> 00:36:42.570
A lot of things happened that allowed for me to survive, not only to survive,

00:36:42.570 --> 00:36:48.540
but to be standing on my both feet and to be not handicapped and not having any catastrophic,

00:36:49.650 --> 00:36:52.270
you know, outcome of this moment.

00:36:53.380 --> 00:36:59.180
Plus, I had this spiritual encounter with these beautiful people in this beautiful garden.

00:36:59.690 --> 00:37:05.610
And when I came back, I thought, actually, I opened my eyes. I was still on the road.

00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:09.660
And there was people on top of me looking whether I was dead or not.

00:37:10.130 --> 00:37:14.720
And they asked me, who's the president? You know, they want to know if you have a brain injury.

00:37:14.720 --> 00:37:15.510
If you're alert, yeah. Yeah.

00:37:16.300 --> 00:37:19.150
And I was like, I tried to make a joke. I couldn't because it wouldn't come

00:37:19.150 --> 00:37:24.740
out of my chest. But I tried to say, Sisi or Obama or Trump,

00:37:24.740 --> 00:37:26.320
you know, which one are you asking?

00:37:26.320 --> 00:37:27.560
Which country do you want to know?

00:37:28.080 --> 00:37:31.270
And also there was, it was, you know, it was a month before the election.

00:37:31.270 --> 00:37:32.860
So it was either Obama or Trump.

00:37:35.040 --> 00:37:40.410
Then when I started to recover, I made a deal with myself or I made...

00:37:42.060 --> 00:37:45.460
yeah, I made a deal with myself. I said, no more being dark.

00:37:45.820 --> 00:37:49.180
You need to be with God and only with God

00:37:49.780 --> 00:37:50.780
It's so interesting,

00:37:50.780 --> 00:37:52.440
Lara. And so I went on a quest. Your

00:37:52.440 --> 00:37:57.290
positivity... I mean, it sounds to me like the biggest learning from this was you

00:37:57.290 --> 00:38:00.510
saw life in a very positive way. After

00:38:00.510 --> 00:38:04.070
having been in a very dark place, you came out of this in a positive way.

00:38:04.270 --> 00:38:08.950
I mean, until then, I was flirting with darkness as much as with ecstasy.

00:38:09.650 --> 00:38:13.990
So I was going from one to the other, from one to the other, very easily. Easily.

00:38:15.210 --> 00:38:18.320
You know, it was like an easy place for me to be and I could come out of it.

00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:21.410
But I suffered a lot from it.

00:38:22.550 --> 00:38:26.570
I think it's also a lot of hormonal issues and whatever, you know. But it's also, you know,

00:38:27.370 --> 00:38:28.290
things you had seen.

00:38:28.750 --> 00:38:34.970
Things I've seen, things I didn't deal with, things I didn't cope well with.

00:38:34.970 --> 00:38:39.550
I mean, so many things. But I was very passionate about everything.

00:38:39.550 --> 00:38:46.510
So I was passionate about my darkness as much as being passionate about being

00:38:46.510 --> 00:38:50.330
ecstatic. But, you know, when you're ecstatic, you're bound to fall down and hurt yourself.

00:38:51.650 --> 00:38:55.730
When someone says to you, where is home, what do you say?

00:38:55.980 --> 00:39:01.100
In terms of country, I think home is here. I'm here. Cairo is my home.

00:39:02.450 --> 00:39:07.810
But home is when you are, again, when you are in the joy of the divine.

00:39:08.090 --> 00:39:15.770
And when you feel that, you know, when you can connect yourself and have that

00:39:15.770 --> 00:39:20.640
relationship and nothing else matters, really. Actually, everything else opens up.

00:39:20.810 --> 00:39:21.520
Interesting.

00:39:21.520 --> 00:39:23.550
And it becomes even more beautiful than ever.

00:39:24.090 --> 00:39:28.520
This is such an amazing story. I didn't expect to go this

00:39:28.650 --> 00:39:30.420
way with you. I know you didn't.

00:39:30.420 --> 00:39:35.120
I'm very... but I find it fascinating. And I find it really interesting that you,

00:39:35.120 --> 00:39:40.230
that this is how you're living your life. I love it. Yes. I love it.