Anchored in the logic of collage and assemblage, Laïla Mestari’s interdisciplinary practice explores issues relating to diasporic identity and cultural hybridity. Through photography, drawing, installation, textiles and video, she revisits her own family history marked by immigration and biculturalism. Mestari’s surrealist works examine the fragmentary nature of identity and the body’s ability to inhabit several worlds at once. The camera plays a dominant role in this process, acting as both the scissors that deconstruct the world, and the glue that reassembles its pieces.
Laïla Mestari is an artist of Moroccan origin living in Montreal. Recipient of several scholarships and distinctions (Joan Livingstone Merit Scholarship, Ada Lovelace Prize, CALQ and CAC scholarships, Valedictorian of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Irene F. Whittome Prize in Studio Arts), she has presented her work in several exhibitions individual and collective in Canada, Europe and the United States. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University (2017) as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2023). Mestari's work is notably part of the permanent collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the RBC Collection and the art bank of the Canada Council for the Arts.
