Laila Islam is a curator and multidisciplinary artist in Philadelphia. Islam identifies as a curator committed to artistic community engagement and radical healing. They define radical healing as a practice where people create a space for communities who experience systemic harm to think and exist outside of their violent histories and realities. These platforms allow groups of people to combat said realities, ultimately empowering and equipping people with the ability to better unionize and mobilize as communities through communal care.Islam’s passion to intersect curation with community mobilization is reflected in their work as founder, co-curator, and collective organizer of The Future Is Us Collective. For their independent practice, Islam explores the way capitalism, the male gaze, and white gaze affects our interpersonal relationships and our relationships with ourselves and our bodies. Using text, self portraiture, and portrayals of the body, Islam creates as a way to emotionally process and navigate onticide and historical dehumanization.