Myna

About the work

A small glazed ceramic myna, a bird known for its gift of mimicry, presented as a sound sculpture on a plinth. 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 work plays on the myna's talent for repeating voices, echoing Kameli's interest in translation and the passage of words between languages.