Heba Y. Amin (born 1980) is a visual artist, researcher and educator.

Early life and education

Amin was born and raised in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

. She was educated at

Cairo American College Cairo American College (or CAC) is a Pre-K–12 International American School located in Maadi, Cairo, Egypt. It caters mainly to dependents of the local American embassy and other international students. Cairo American College is a not for-profit ...

in Maadi. Amin moved to the United States in 1998 and studied Mathematics and Studio Art receiving a BA diploma from

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

. She enrolled in a post-graduate program at the

Minneapolis College of Art and Design The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) is a private college specializing in the visual arts and located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MCAD currently enrolls approximately 800 students. MCAD is one of just a few major art schools to offer ...

in 2005. She received an MFA in interactive design from the College of Design at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 2009. Following her studies, she was awarded a DAAD (German Academic Exchange) grant for her project "Alternative Memorials" at the University of Applied Sciences, Berlin. She is a DCRL Fellow in Leuphana University in Lüneburg (2017), a doctoral fellow in a
BGSMSC
at Freie Universität in Berlin from 2016 to present, and a current Field of Vision fellow in NYC.

Career

Amin's works are embedded in extensive research and interrogating the convergence of politics, technology, and urbanism. She is currently the curator of Visual Art for Mizna (Minneapolis, USA), curator for the biennial residency program DEFAULT with Ramdom Association (IT) (Italy) and co-founder of the Black Athena Collective along with artist Dawit L. Petros. She is also one of the artists behind the subversive action on the set of the television series "

Homeland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethni ...

" which received worldwide media attention. Hired by the producers of the ''

'' television series to incorporate "authentic" Arabic graffiti, Amin spray-painted subversive graffiti on the set of the show. Written in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, the graffiti actually criticized the show ''Homeland'' itself, with phrases such as "''Homeland'' is racist". Amin has criticized ''Homeland'' for its inaccuracy and bias in its portrayal of people from various countries in the Middle East. Amin illustrated a children's book ''Extraordinary Women in the Muslim World''; the book received a

Moonbeam Children's Book Award Moonbeam may refer to: * Moonlight, the light that reaches Earth from the Moon * Moonbeam (band), a trance music group from Russia * Moonbeam, Ontario, a township in Canada * Moonbeam, a nickname of the American politician Jerry Brown (born 1938) ...

. Amin has taken part in group exhibitions at the Dak'Art Biennale 2016, Marakkech Biennale Parallel Projects 2016, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Camera Austria, Berlin Berlinale 9th Forum Expanded Exhibition, the IV Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, the WRO 15th Media Art Biennale Poland, the National Gallery of Mongolia, and the Art Museum of Gotland Sweden. She has received a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) grant and a

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

commission grant and was shortlisted for the artraker prize. Amin taught at the University of Minnesota,

American University in Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ar, الجامعة الأمريكية بالقاهرة, Al-Jāmi‘a al-’Amrīkiyya bi-l-Qāhira) is a private research university in Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs ...

, and the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. She has given various lectures and workshops worldwide. Her work titled ''The Earth Is an Imperfect Ellipsoid'' (2016) was featured i
Mizna
's Summer'16 Issue, where she was also interviewed in Lana Barkawi's essay "Criticality and Dissent". Amin currently lives in Berlin and works as a lecturer at

Bard College Berlin Bard College Berlin (formerly known as ECLA or European College of Liberal Arts) is a private, non-profit institution of higher education in Berlin, Germany. It was founded as a non-profit association in 1999. Courses are taught in the English lan ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Amin, Heba 1980 births Living people 21st-century Egyptian women artists Egyptian contemporary artists University of Minnesota College of Design alumni Macalester College alumni The American University in Cairo faculty Artists from Cairo Egyptian expatriates in the United States Women graffiti artists