Hoopoe

About the work

A ceramic hoopoe on a plinth, representing the wise guide who persuades the other birds to undertake their quest. In Farid ud-Din Attar's twelfth-century Persian poem The Conference of the Birds, a flock sets out across seven valleys in search of its king; Kameli's installation gives each bird a body and a voice. The hoopoe's voice, issuing from the sculpture, leads the listener through the exhibition as it leads the flock in the poem.