Leila O. Leila
2012
Ink on Vinyl

20″ x 96″

This series of digital drawings examine the specificities of global travel for immigrants and tourists, and the surreal day- to-day experiences of trans-cultural women. I am interested in the airport as a place that symbolizes personal metamorphosis, and which simultaneously contrasts and conflicts with the realities of mass tourism, immigration, border controls and security. In “Leila O. Leila,” I have developed a storyboard narrative based on vintage Bollywood representations of the gangster moll. She is usually a glamorous westernized vamp, who participates in criminal heists and then dies a gruesome death. My composite character’s story is set at the Bombay airport, and it is loosely connected to a historical event at this airport involving the first female plane hijacker, Leila Khaled, of the PFLP. Fact and fiction collide to allow for various interpretations of this character’s story.

Leila O. Leila, 2012, Ink on Vinyl, 20″ x 96″

Leila O. Leila, 2012, Ink on Vinyl, 20″ x 96″. Detail of three panels.

Leila O. Leila, 2012, Ink on Vinyl, 20″ x 96″. Detail of one panel.

Leila O. Leila, 2012, Ink on Vinyl, 20″ x 96″ (background).