The General’s Stork
Heba Y. Amin

Lecture performance

September 15, 2017 / 18:00

In late 2013, Egypt made worldwide headlines when authorities detained a migratory stork traveling from Israel to Egypt because of an electronic device attached to its body. It was suspected of espionage. Almost one hundred years earlier, Lord Allenby, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, completed a major phase in biblical prophecy by launching ‘bird-like machines’ to capture Jerusalem from the Ottomans. The General’s Stork is a lecture performance that converges biblical prophecies, colonial narratives and the politics of surveillance to investigate the contemporary conditions of state paranoia that turned a migrating bird into an international spy.

Heba Y. Amin is an Egyptian visual artist, researcher and lecturer. She is currently teaching at Bard College Berlin, is a BGSMSC doctorate fellow at Freie Universität, and a recent resident artist at the Bethanien artist residency program in Berlin. Amin has received many grants, including the Shuttleworth Foundation Flash Grant, DAAD and the Rhizome Commissions grant. She is the co-founder of the Black Athena Collective, the curator of visual art for the MIZNA journal (US), and curator for the biennial residency program DEFAULT with Ramdom Association (IT). Furthermore, Amin is also one of the artists behind the subversive graffiti action on the set of the television series Homelandwhich received worldwide media attention.

Free of admissions, drop in. This event will take place in the auditorium. The talk will be in English with simultaneous Turkish translation.

Temporary Exhibition

15th Istanbul Biennial

Pera Museum hosted the 15th Istanbul Biennial, organized by Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Koç Holding. The 15th Istanbul Biennial brought together artworks by 55 artists from 32 countries, all addressing different notions of home, belonging and neighbourhood.

15th Istanbul Biennial

Los Caprichos

Los Caprichos

It can be seen how Goya gradually and constantly investigated all the technical possibilities of creative engraving from etching to lithography. 

Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

Between 1963 and 1966 Andy Warhol worked at making film portraits of all sorts of characters linked to New York art circles. Famous people and anonymous people were filmed by Andy Warhol’s 16 mm camera, for almost four minutes, without any instructions other than ‘to get in front of the camera’.

Soothsayer Serenades I Serenades to the Sun by Kornelia Binicewicz

Soothsayer Serenades I Serenades to the Sun by Kornelia Binicewicz

Today we are thrilled to present the third playlist of Amrita Hepi’s Soothsayer Serenades series as part of the Notes for Tomorrow exhibition. The playlist titled Serenades to the Sun is presented by Kornelia Binicewiczon Pera Museum’s Spotify account.