With a plain white mask and a bright red wig, the Italian street artist Laika MCMLIV has, over the past seven years, built a distinctive artistic identity grounded in a much-needed anonymity, political urgency, and the broader reclaiming of public space. Active across multiple countries and increasingly involved in strategic campaigns and grassroots struggles, the Rome-based artist has become one of the most recognisable voices in contemporary street art, transforming walls, politically engaged posters, and deeply rooted urban interventions into sharp critiques of abuses of power, widening inequalities, institutional silence, and, in particular, European complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Named by the Italian magazine d di Repubblica among the “100 Women Who Are Changing the World” (le “100 Donne che cambiano il mondo”) in 2021 and featured in media outlets across the globe, Laika — whose artistic name pays tribute to the first living being sent into space in 1954 — first gained visibility through small sticker campaigns across Rome before reaching international audiences with renowned works such as “#JeNeSuisPasUnVirus”, denouncing anti-Chinese racism at the outset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and “L’Abbraccio” (“The Embrace”), portraying Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, tortured and murdered in Egypt in 2016, embracing the then-detained Egyptian student Patrick Zaki near Villa Savoia, where the Embassy of Egypt in Rome is located.
In recent months, the artist travelled to Barcelona to secretly paint the vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla right before their humanitarian departure towards Gaza, part of an international initiative aimed at challenging the Israeli blockade and delivering aid to Palestinians. Earlier this week, on the eve of Europe Day 2026, Laika carried out a further high-profile intervention: a coordinated artistic action unfolding simultaneously in Rome and Brussels, two capitals deeply interwoven with both the symbolic foundations of the European Union and the growing tensions surrounding the policies of its Member States today.
Europe Day and the Cosmetic Performance of European Unity
Each year on 9 May, European institutions celebrate Europe Day through carefully staged public events around the European Quarter in Brussels. Institutional buildings open their doors to visitors, national stands distribute carefully crafted, gastronationalist, folkloric food bites, and entertainment-style animators guide crowds through the corridors of EU governance in an atmosphere that increasingly resembles a mini-Disneyland. This year, trays of industrial pastéis de nata were hurriedly sliced by exhausted trainees standing before long queues. At the same time, circus-style popcorn stalls reinforced the increasingly entertainment parc like atmosphere surrounding the celebrations and the broader touristification of the European Quarter. Pieces of Breton bread circulated beneath the spring sun as EU institutions temporarily, and not always convincingly, attempted to reinvent themselves as accessible spaces of celebration, openness, and cultural unity. The carefully curated image stood in sharp contrast with the realities unfolding beyond the glass façades of Brussels’ institutional district, particularly in Belgium itself, where deepening social struggles, housing pressures, labour insecurity, and widening socioeconomic inequalities continue to shape everyday life.
Yet beneath the festive atmosphere, another reality is increasingly visible. For many visitors — particularly young Europeans from Southern and Eastern Europe seeking better career opportunities that are becoming less accessible in their countries of origin — the European Quarter in Brussels represents both aspiration and distance: the promise of prestigious careers and ostensibly stable contracts, often far removed from lived realities, but also a highly insulated institutional ecosystem that is increasingly perceived, by those more familiar with it, as profoundly disconnected from the social crises and political tensions unfolding beyond its carefully managed spaces.
A number of civil society organisations, alongside the informal network of current and former EU staff gathering weekly under the evocative name “EU Staff for Peace”, have consistently denounced the shrinking civic space, the perceived subordination to the US geopolitical stance, and the widening contradiction between the European Union’s declared commitment to human rights as enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union and its funding priorities and external policies, on the one hand, and its geopolitical and liberal practices on the other. It is precisely within this climate of disillusionment and confrontation that Laika’s Europe Day artivist intervention emerged, now vividly inscribed on walls in Brussels and Rome.
Rome and Brussels: Parallel Murals Against Complicity
In Brussels, on Rue Wayenberg near the Théâtre Varia, Laika installed “A Bloodthirsty Love”, portraying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kissing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a direct critique of European institutions, accusing them of political, diplomatic, and economic complicity with Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza as well as broader violent interventions across the region. In Rome, in front of the European Commission offices, another mural depicts Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shaking hands with an Israeli settler-colonist.
A third visual thread, titled “Dikè: Justice in Danger”, connects both cities by portrays Lady Justice, crowned with European stars, being abducted by two Israeli soldiers. connects both cities by portraying Lady Justice, crowned with European stars, being abducted by two Israeli IDF soldiers. The blue dress of Lady Justice also carries a call for the liberation of the activists Thiago Ávila and Saif Abu Keshek, condemning their capture and unlawful detention by Israeli authorities after the interception of the the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, while it attempted to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. One version of the murales appeared at place Sainte-Catherine in Brussels, while another was installed on via della Cordonata, a historic Roman street leading towards the Quirinale Presidential Palace.
The message is crystal clear: for Laika and the activists supporting the campaign, there is little to celebrate at institutional level on Europe Day 2026. Instead, the works frame the current moment as one of democratic, legal, and moral crisis within the European project itself. “This is a Europe complicit in genocide and apartheid” the ECI’s representatives stated, arguing that continued EU support for Israel fundamentally contradicts the Union’s founding commitments to democracy, international law, and human rights, while also visually echoing the demands of the European Citizens’ Initiative to push the European Union to end its alleged complicity with Israel’s violations of international law and of the Union’s own commitments, starting with the full suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement.
The Revamp of the European Citizens’ Initiative
The artistic initiative, realised simultaneously in Rome and Brussels, was conceived and developed in synergy with “Justice for Palestine”, the rapidly growing European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) that has become one of the most significant transnational mobilisation campaigns since the mechanism was introduced through the Treaty of Lisbon and first, gradually implemented in 2012. Unlike most previous ECIs, which often required several years of organisational effort, substantial external funding, and institutional backing to gain visibility and operate effectively, the campaign “Justice for Palestine” quickly surpassed one million signatures only three months only three months after its launch on 13th January 2026.
In this way, an instrument embedded within the European institutional system is beginning to reveal its political potential after more than a decade of limited visibility: the European Citizens’ Initiative itself. At the time of its introduction, following years of grassroots advocacy that preceded its incorporation into the Treaty of Lisbon (which formally enshrined the principles of democratic equality, representative democracy, and participatory democracy, and entered into force on 1 December 2009) the ECI was conceived as the world’s first supranational instrument of participatory democracy, enabling EU citizens to directly request legislative action from European institutions. For many years, however, despite sustained efforts by activists and organisers, the mechanism remained largely marginal, struggling to achieve public recognition even within the EU’s own institutional and political circuits, while also failing to secure broader political legitimacy or to provide a truly tangible platform for large-scale advocacy mobilisation. That dynamic changed significantly between late 2025 and early 2026, particularly thanks to the movement behind the successful ECI “My Voice, My Choice” (MVMC), a transnational campaign advocating for reproductive justice and access to abortion across the European Union.
Thus, several initiatives began demonstrating the ECI’s capacity to galvanise transnational political participation, ranging from new campaigns defending the adaptive reuse of existing buildings over demolition and advocating for affordable housing, to those proposing a binding legal ban on conversion practices targeting LGBTQ+ citizens across the European Union, and finally to the ECI “Justice for Palestine”, which calls for the suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement and now also serves as the broader political framework supporting Laika’s artistic intervention. Within this revitalised, enthusiastic, and highly engaged context, the latter rapidly became the fastest-growing ECIs in the history of the European Union, surpassing the required one million signatures in only three months and reaching the national threshold in ten Member States, well above the minimum of seven required under EU law. At the time of writing, the initiative had gathered a total of 1,188,212 signatures, including 34,338 in Belgium, representing 231.94% of the national threshold, and 264,507 in Italy, corresponding to 493.67%. The initiative calls for the complete suspension of the EU–Israel Association Agreement, providing a consistent legal basis to demonstrate that continued cooperation legitimises systematic violations of international law, occupation, apartheid policies, and the ongoing destruction of Gaza.
Campaign organisers emphasise that the mobilisation extends far beyond party structures, bringing together Palestinian-led organisations, grassroots collectives, civil society groups, artists, and ordinary citizens across Europe. In this context, organisers are now aiming to reach at least 1.5 million signatures in order to compensate for potentially invalidated entries during the verification process, intensify pressure on EU institutions, and further strengthen political pressure on the European Commission to immediately suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement and impose effective sanctions on Israel.
Image from a recurring demonstration held in central Brussels in support of Palestine, calling for the imposition of sanctions against the State of Israel and for an end to the genocide in Gaza (Lodeserto).
Beyond the EU Bubble: Another Brussels Exists and Expresses Its Soul
Laika’s intervention also directly challenges the media tendency to reduce Brussels to its function as the institutional capital of the European Union, while simultaneously conflating Europe itself with the EU’s institutional and political framework. While a small section of the European Quarter staged official Europe Day celebrations, much of the city and the wider Brussels-Capital Region hosted radically different forms of collective and creative expression, celebrating spring, solidarity, and alternative understandings of community, whether European or rooted in broader geocultural and genuine forms of belonging. Only a short walking distance from one of Laika’s murals, Place du Béguinage hosted the Fête de la Dignité, a civic and celebratory gathering organised by the House of Compassion in Brussels to promote human dignity, solidarity, and social engagement through the symbolic language of giants, including public performances and an exhibition dedicated to them. The event — or fête — drew upon the rich trans-European cultural tradition of giants, a heritage that has recently experienced a powerful revival through socially engaged figures advocating for contemporary causes. Throughout the day, immense figures from across countries and beyond, together with their collective narratives and commitments, moved through the public space in an explosion of colour, reaffirming a simple political and human truth: dignity carries no papers, yet it has a voice — and sometimes, that voice is giant, expressing what legal status alone cannot fully embody.
According to researcher and European expert on giants Tristan Sadones, who also curated the exhibition on their history displayed at the House of Compassion, the growing emergence of socially engaged giants is far from accidental:
«More and more giants are embracing the major questions facing humanity in order to spread messages of hope and give a voice to injustice. Minorities become gigantic, power relations are inverted, and limits are questioned. Festive activism, particularly through giants, constitutes a creative, innovative, and profoundly relevant response to the major impasses of our time».
Within this framework, the second edition of the Fête de la Dignité, held on Saturday 9 May 2026, paid particular tribute to the giant puppet Sabine, a symbolic figure representing the struggles of undocumented migrants, closely linked to the parcours of Sabine Amyième, who played a central role in the Matongé district in Brussels and in major popular mobilisations in defence of migrants’ rights over the past decade. According to the organisers and the creators of the giant Sabine:
«Even when struggles appear overwhelming — because of their duration, their violence, or the accumulation of obstacles – giants continue to act as carriers of resilience, imagination, and collective strength. Through their presence, they foster connections and alliances among diverse actors, opening tangible horizons of solidarity beyond the fractures of the present by acting as bridge-builders (bruggenbouwers, in Flemish), capable of sparking curiosity, dialogue, and encounter in a period marked by polarisation and the hardening of public discourse around migration and social justice. In this sense, our giants truly act as carriers of dignity for those living under the threat of exclusion, detention, or invisibility».
In parallel, intensive preparations for the large-scale, long-awaited participatory “Zinneke Parade” continued across neighbourhoods through grassroots artistic workshops, collective community projects, and the active involvement of giant figures. The biennial popular parade — one of Brussels’ most distinctive cultural moments since 2000 — brings together residents, associations, schools, and artists in large-scale collaborative performances celebrating urban diversity, hybridity, and shared imagination. The current edition revolves around the theme of “dreams”, under the multilingual, mixed slogan “Rêver is nodig / Dromen is nécessaire”.
Parade of the giant Sabine, the Giant of Dignity, during the preparatory workshops for the Zinneke Parade at Het Anker in Brussels North, 9 May, giving rise to dreams of dignity. Photo: Geneviève Frère.
These are just a few vivid examples among dozens of parallel urban realities that collectively reveal ‘another Brussels’, far removed from the carefully manufactured institutional image projected during Europe Day celebrations. It is indeed an extremely fluid context , that of a city which remains deeply multilingual, socially fragmented, and politically contested, yet intensely alive through grassroots participation rather than institutional choreography. In this perspective, Laika’s intervention inserts itself directly into this landscape of counter-narratives, collective agency, visual identity, belonging, and demands for political accountability.
Parade of the giant Sabine, the Giant of Dignity, during the preparatory workshops for the Zinneke Parade at Het Anker in Brussels North, 9 May, giving rise to dreams of dignity. Photo: Geneviève Frère.
Art as Political Disruption and Reclaiming Public Space
The artist describes her pseudonym as an invitation to “aim for space”, i.e. to observe society from a broader perspective, unconstrained by imposed limits. In her interpretation, the chosen name ‘Laika’ refers both to the Soviet space dog launched into orbit in 1957 and to the Leica camera, evoking observation, distance, and exposure. Anonymity is therefore central to her practice: by concealing her personal identity, Laika deliberately shifts attention away from the individual and towards political messages defending social, civil, and human rights.
Over the years, the artist’s work has addressed a wide range of issues such as femicide, migration along the Balkan Route, the war in Ukraine, LGBTQ+ rights, racism, the coronavirus pandemic, the genocide in Palestine, Afghan women’s freedoms, and anti-fascist memory in Italy. Besides Rome and Brussels, her interventions have appeared in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, the United States, and many other countries, while exhibitions and documentaries have further expanded her international visibility.
Yet despite growing institutional recognition, Laika continues to work at grassroots level, insisting on the disruptive potential of street art itself, considering it essential that it remains accessible and inseparable from public space, fully reclaiming it while posing uncomfortable questions to broader audiences of passers-by and official authorities.
On Europe Day 2026, this disruption at the symbolic heart of the European Union also enters into a broader public conversation. For many visitors moving through the carefully curated open days of the EU institutions in Brussels, the European project still presents itself as a celebration of peace, democracy, and shared prosperity. Laika’s murals, however, pose a far more uncomfortable question, forcing observers and passers-by alike to confront what remains of those values when Europe’s political leadership is increasingly accused of complicity, silence, shared interests and indifference in the face of mass destruction, genocide, colonial occupation, and other crimes against humanity.
