Z for Zarafa

Egyptian-Lebanese artist Lara Baladi, who is based in Cairo, presents Z for Zarafa, her first solo exhibition at Gypsum Gallery, on view from 2 June to 23 September 2026. Bringing together tapestry, photography, web-based work and sculptural installation, much of it developed during her 2025 fellowship at Civitella Ranieri in Italy, the show takes its cue from the final letter of the alphabet.

The exhibition grows out of Anatomy of Revolution, which the gallery describes as Baladi's "monumental web-based ABC of global protests", begun in 2019 and still ongoing. Here the letter Z becomes an entry point into migration, diplomatic exchange and the history of revolutions.

At its heart is Zarafa, the giraffe that Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, sent to King Charles X of France in 1827. As the gallery notes, she was more than a diplomatic offering: "a living emissary who traversed continents, empires, and imaginations", inspiring hairstyles, textiles and decorative objects across France. For Baladi, Zarafa is both a diplomatic relic and a metaphor for displacement and forced migration.

The key visual, a large collaged tapestry, sets a turbaned figure in a pink frock coat astride a giraffe, framed by flowers, postcards, archival images and a strip of colour swatches, and hung against patterned wallpaper flanked by two ornate roundels. It is characteristic of an artist who has long worked across archives, fantasy and documentation, from her monumental photomosaic Om El Dounia to Vox Populi, her archive of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

A companion publication, The Anatomist, was co-produced by Gypsum and launched with the exhibition. Today is the final day to see the show in Maadi.