Preview: LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN 'Earwitness Theatre'

Chisenhale Gallery presents a new co-commission by Beirut-based artist and ‘private ear’, Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Earwitness Theatre develops Abu Hamdan’s enquiry into the political effects of listening, presenting a new commision that explores the hallucinatory world of the earwitness. Abu Hamdan’s exhibition is commissioned and produced by Chisenhale Gallery in partnership with: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane and it will be presented at the partner venues throughout 2019.  

Abu Hamdan’s work questions the ways in which rights are being heard and the way voices can become politically audible. In 2016 Abu Hamdan was asked to create dedicated earwitness interviews for Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London’s investigation into the Syrian regime prison of Saydnaya. It is estimated that as many as 13,000 people have been executed in Saydnaya since 2011. Inaccessible to independent observers and monitors, the violations taking place at the prison are only recorded through the memory of those few who are released. The capacity for detainees to see anything in Saydnaya is highly restricted as they are mostly kept in darkness, blindfolded or made to cover their eyes. As a result, prisoners develop an acute sensitivity to sound.