The traitor returned, but the nightmare continues | Exhibition in the 24th Nidbach Series

A young artist who holds a master’s degree in art, Laila Abd Elrazaq has emerged on the local young art scene as a unique voice with acerbic visual work combining video, photography, painting, collage, text, and performance, marked by an approach both humorous and biting, rebellious and critical.

In her first solo exhibition, Abd Elrazaq presents two short films, which bring up memories intertwined with surrealistic interpretations of biographical anecdotes from her childhood and youth, a time when she was considered an “outsider” in her social environment due to her refusal to be “like everyone else.” As a child she suffered from a speech delay. When she finally spoke, her main language was English, although her mother tongue is Arabic, and therefore she was not accepted as an insider, in either Arab or Jewish society.

In her first film, Aren’t You Ashamed of Yourself (2023), Abd Elrazaq addresses that outsider status from childhood, which stemmed from her inability to speak Arabic, a condition that led to social ostracism and being labeled a “traitor.” The word “traitor” also appears in her second film, The Traitor Returned, but the Nightmare Continues (2024)—a faster, more psychological and surreal horror movie that evokes a traumatic memory from 2014. The mantra “traitor” is imprinted on every bit of exposed skin. Inscribing it repeatedly echoes the trauma of physical and verbal aggression, which the artist experienced firsthand in her youth from both sectors, and the social boycott, in whose shadow she grew up. In this movie, however, the girl Laila turns from a victim to a heroine, who fights the aggressors and wins thanks to the power of the imagination. By analogy, Laila reinvents herself through art. Her performativity, scripts, and images are inspired by manga, Japanese animation, and series centered on female superheroes who fight and vanquish the bad guys.

Feminist, critical, and smart, Abd Elrazaq’s work puts forth a response to conservative views, criticizing society, which tries to limit the individual and dictate what should or should not be done, how to speak and in what language to think and communicate as a human being, as a woman, or as an artist. The fast pace, directness, humor, lightness, the fusion of languages, and the blurring of identities are Laila’s current visual language; at the same time, it is also an empowering and culturally enriching existential state that holds a potential for connection and acceptance.