Allenby, whose name translates as “prophet” in Arabic, fulfilled a biblical prophecy when he led the capture of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire in 1917 part of this action was to send planes over the city, ordering those in power to surrender. In The General’s Stork, floral stucco niches with Corinthian columns frame doctored historical photographs of Lord Edmund Allenby, the British High Commissioner of Egypt and Sudan, with his pet marabou stork. The stork was later freed into a nature reserve with the help of a conservation agency – before it fell prey to local children from Aswan, who hunted and ate the stork shortly afterwards. Hungarian scientists had fitted the device to research the bird’s wintering behavior. In 2013, the Egyptian police in Qena detained a migrating stork that had a tracking device around its neck on charges of spying.
For this genre-defying installation of photographs, films, and a publication, Amin took a catchy news story about a spying stork as the starting point for her research. Upstairs, a patio-facing gallery on the ground floor blends together two works, The General’s Stork and As Birds Flying ( Kama Tohalleq al Teyour, 2016), bridging the gap between the British rule in the Middle East and Egypt today. Amin: When I see the future, I close my eyes,” The Mosaic Rooms, 2020, installation view Suddenly, the colonialist narratives coalesce into climate-altering marketing slogans: from “drain the swamp” to “canal to paradise” to “make the desert bloom.” Together with an embassy-style flag display outside of the gallery, two photographic portraits – one historical, the other framed and stately – and a 19-minute video address alongside other historical and current world leaders, Amin’s transformation seems almost complete. She dishes her satirical visions like dinner plates on the table, alongside newspaper cuts and cartographies.
Continuing the ideas of Jules Verne and Herman Sörgel, Amin proposes draining the Mediterranean Sea to solve the migration crisis and end terrorism. Under the guise of a fictitious Arab-African woman world leader, the artist reflects on colonialist narratives, leadership megalomania, and political symbols. Operation Sunken Sea has been aptly placed in the basement gallery, and it simulates a darkened and stuffy conference room. The exhibition spans three galleries on two floors with no clearly intended route.
The exhibition elegantly explores the British rule in Egypt and follows political unrest through the lens of three research-based works: Operation Sunken Sea (2018–ongoing), The General’s Stork (2016–ongoing), and Project Speak2Tweet (2011–ongoing). Qattan Foundation is one of London’s mainstays for contemporary culture from the Middle East. Set in a Georgian townhouse in Earl’s Court, the venue and cultural arm of the A. Her works originate in real stories, taken from news outlets and historical archives, though they are also fleeting snapshots in time: each exhibition displays different iterations of the artist’s ongoing research, in which she sensitively treats questions of colonialism and democracy, surveillance and censorship.Īmin’s “When I see the future, I close my eyes,” at The Mosaic Rooms, is her institutional debut in the United Kingdom.
Amin’s artistic practice takes investigative journalism as a starting point. Having lived abroad since the age of 18, first in the United States and now in Berlin, she often looks through the dual lens of insider and outsider. Born in 1980 in Cairo, the artist addresses the geopolitical context of Egypt and the Middle East in her works. Amin’s poetic performative installations are poignant political commentaries in disguise. While the exhibition can, at times, seem to lend itself to a British-centered reading, writes Leuschner, this isn’t representative of her oeuvre, but rather is characteristic of Amin’s dynamic practice, which the artist thoughtfully adapts to engage specific contexts and histories. Amin’s exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms is the artist’s institutional debut in the UK, and art historian Maximiliane Leuschner managed to catch it in London before the latest lockdown. Amin works across a broad range of media, creating meticulously researched installations that treat sensitively questions of colonialism, democracy, surveillance, and censorship.
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