WASHINGTON DC

The Middle East Institute is pleased to host internationally acclaimed Egyptian-Lebanese photographer, archivist and multimedia artist Lara Baladi for a discussion about her recent work/projects. Baladi will present the work she produced before and after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, and her current interactive storytelling project based on efforts to archive and interpret the 2011 Revolution in the digital age.

Widely exhibited in Europe and the Middle East, Baladi is known for a body of work which weaves personal and socio-political narratives into non-linear cultural memories. During the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath, Baladi co-founded two media initiatives, Tahrir Cinema and the first free online radio, Radio Tahrir.

For the 2014-15 academic year, she received a fellowship from MIT University’s Open Documentary Lab  to research and apply new technologies to the “transmedia’ project: Vox Populi, Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age”

The discussion will be moderated by Carol Huh, Curator of Contemporary Asian Art of the Freer-Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art.The reception will open at 6:00pm, with the discussion beginning at 6:30pm.

Biographies:

Lara Baladi, a multidisciplinary artist, is internationally recognized for a body of work which weaves personal and socio-political narratives as mutable and non-linear cultural memory. Baladi applies investigations of myths, archives, and personal narratives to a multiple range of mediums including architecture, installations, photography, collage, tapestry, and sculpture. Within her artistic practice, Baladi is active in socially engaged projects. Since its creation in 1997, she has been a board member of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation (AIF). During the 2011 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath, Baladi co-founded two media initiatives, Tahrir Cinema and the first free online radio, Radio Tahrir. In 2014, she began to serve on the advisory board of R-Shief, a historical online archive and media system, and became a board member of the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo, Egypt. For the 2014-15 academic year, she received a Fellowship from MIT University’s Open Documentary Lab, to research and apply new technologies to the ‘transmedia’ project: Vox Populi, Archiving a Revolution in the Digital Age.

Carol Huh (Moderator) is the first curator of contemporary art at the Freer and Sackler. Through exhibitions, acquisitions, and public programs, she is responsible for further developing the Galleries’ effort to explore current environments of artistic production and social change related to Asia. Recent projects have included the museum’s ongoing Perspectives series (including works by Y.Z. Kami, Anish Kapoor, Hai Bo, Hale Tenger, Lu Chunsheng, Minouk Lim, Ai Weiwei, and Rina Banerjee). Huh organized Moving Perspectives, the Galleries’ first series of exhibitions focusing on video art from Asia (with works by Shahzia Sikander, Lida Abdul, Dinh Q Lé, Yang Fudong, and Yeondoo Jung, among others). Special exhibitions include works by Ahmed Mater (upcoming 2016),  Sense of Place: Landscape Photographs from Asia (2013), Nine Deaths, Two Births: Xu Bing’s Phoenix Project (2013), Shadow Sites: Recent Work by Jananne al-Ani (2012), and Fiona Tan: Rise and Fall (in-house curator, 2010). She is responsible for building the Galleries’ collections of contemporary Asian art, especially in the area of photography. Huh is co-chair of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship Committee and member of the Smithsonian Networks Review Committee.