Biography
Layla Önlen found her calling in the theatre at a later age, where the feminist and activist power in her recognised a final destination. She built a career as an actress and performer in an accelerated trajectory of coaching, rehearsals and performances. Her desire to go deeper brought her to the Maastricht Theatre Academy, where she graduated in 2023 with the location performance OverLeven.
Her work, characterised as visual, aesthetic, cinematic and touching humour, carries a palpable social and universal urgency. After graduating, she toured Turkey and Baghdad, where she translated earlier productions, notably Hou Vast! Laat Los! and Gilgamesh, from Dutch and performed them in Turkish. Layla’s work is strengthened by her fascination with materials such as textiles, ribbons and plastic, which she uses to complement the performer and add power to her stories. In doing so, she likes to explore the border area between different disciplines.
Photo: Üzüm Derin Solak
In residentie Navelband
03.03.2025 – 16.03.2025
In her work, Layla investigates how personal stories can translate into universal, shared experiences. With a deep-rooted fascination for textiles and rituals, the red ribbon is a recurring element in her practice. This material, which both connects and limits, runs like a common thread through her artistic trajectory.
The seed for her fascination with the red ribbon was planted in an autobiographical moment: as a bride, just before leaving her parental home, a red ribbon was tied around her waist three times – an act full of tradition and meaning. Twenty-five years later, during her training at the Maastricht Theatre Academy, this ribbon reappeared in her work. What started as a scenographic element on stage, grew into a supporting symbol in performances, installations and an autobiographical work of 100 meters of ribbon: Bismillah.
In 2025, she will delve further into the connecting power of this material with Navelband, an experimental artistic investigation into the relationship between the individual and the collective. How can we connect without losing our own identity? Can a simple object like a ribbon bridge people, space and memory?
Within Navelband she works intuitively and multidisciplinary – visually, performatively and interactively. Individually and with various groups she explores how ribbons can be used as scenographic and game material to create new forms of connection. This research takes place in different contexts: from the black box to public space and nature.
Her artistic practice starts from the belief that art is a means of transformation, both for the maker and for the audience. By interweaving autobiographical elements with universal themes, she creates work that invites encounter and dialogue. Each new project builds on the previous one, always with the same intention: to expose what binds us, without denying ourselves.
