Lara Baladi's Kaleidoscope
A Review of her Installation at The Kennedy Centre, Washington, D.C.
Arabesque, a cultural festival of arts from the Arab world at The Kennedy Center, includes Lara Baladi's Kaleidoscope or Robba Veccia meaning "old robe" in Italian.
The installation consists of a triangular tunnel of mirrors large enough to allow viewers to walk inside. A video screen is placed at a short distance from one end of the tunnel transforming it into a prism. The images projected are taken from Baladi’s still and video archive from visits to Egypt, India, Japan, New York, Mali and more.
Exterior View
Even before entering the tunnel the viewer is confronted by a surreal and fantastical space. The opening to the tunnel, a triangle light seemingly suspended in total darkness, gives the impression of a mysterious entrance or exit to some other dimension of space and time.
The darkened space, the two by two processions into the tunnel and the requirement of covering one’s shoes with a protective cloth give the sense that a ritual is taking place and the viewers waiting behave accordingly with hushed voices and sober demeanor.
Interior View
In the tunnel, one is confronted with their own image combined with Baladi’s imagery in a seemingly infinite succession of reflections. While visitors walk through the tunnel, the video randomly shuffles and projects thousands of images, hundreds at a time.
The viewer is at once a participant in and part of the installation. The effect causes one to feel spatially disoriented and completely immersed. The tunnel is no longer an enclosed space, but an open landscape rich with dizzying imagery of oneself in a timeless narrative.
The Work in Context to Islamic Art
The work is created in the ideal of an arabesque, an elaborative repetitive form prevalent in Islamic art, architecture and craft. In Islamic art an arabesque represents an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world, which in turn, symbolizes the uncentralized nature of God.
Baladi breaks with Islamic artistic tradition by allowing the human form to participate in, and perhaps, even become central to the work.
About Lara Baladi
Lara Baladi was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1969.only six years prior to the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. She currently resides in Cairo, Egypt. She has exhibited internationally and her work is in such noted collections as The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris, France, and The Pori Art Museum in Finland.
In writing this review special thanks is given to Brancolini Grimaldi Arte Contemporanea.
Exterior View
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Interior Views
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