Laila Shawa's Retrospective 'Inside Paradise' Opens in Poland

The exhibition 'Inside Paradise' showcases the artworks of Laila Shawa (1940–2022), a Palestinian artist known for her trans-cultural visual language that fuses Islamic ornamentation, Western pop art, Byzantine calligraphy, and graffiti. Often referred to as Islamo-pop, her style critically reinterprets traditional forms to highlight issues of power and violence. This event signifies her return to Poland, where her work debuted in 1980 at the Central Exhibition Bureau in Warsaw. Shawa, who studied in Cairo, Rome, and Salzburg under artists such as Renato Guttuso and Oskar Kokoschka, adeptly navigated painting, printmaking, and installation. Central to her work is the 'Walls of Gaza' lithograph series from the 1990s. The exhibition includes 'Breast Bombs' in mirrored boxes by Esben Weile Kjær, and 'Disposable Bodies' (2011–2013), which features headless female mannequins critiquing media representations of female suicide bombers. Shawa also contributed to the establishment of the Rashad Shawa International Cultural Centre in Gaza, completed in 1988 and destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in November 2023. This exhibition is a partnership with Salzburger Kunstverein, where it first appeared in summer 2025.