Lawrence Abu Hamdan (born 1985,

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

) is a contemporary artist based in

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

. His work looks into the political effects of listening, using various kinds of audio to explore its effects on human rights and law. Because of his work with sound, Abu Hamdan has testified as an expert witness in asylum hearings in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. His work has been featured in major group exhibitions, as well as solo exhibitions at

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Witte (and de Witte) are Dutch language, Dutch and Low German surnames meaning "(the) white one". Witte can also be a patronymic surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alfred Witte (1878–1941), German astrologer * Barbara Witte (192 ...

The Showroom The Showroom is a not-for-profit art gallery in Marylebone, London, which displays site-specific works by emerging artists. The gallery presents four shows each year, a schedule that allows artists the time to develop and realise their work on si ...

, and is included in the collection of several major institutions. He jointly won, with Tai Shani,

Oscar Murillo Oscar Murillo (born 1986) is a Colombian artist working within the painting tradition. He currently lives and works in various locations. Curator and writer Legacy Russell has said that the artist explores "the body in transit", while curator H ...

and Helen Cammock, the 2019

Turner Prize The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible (this restriction was removed for the 2017 award). ...

for his work based on interviews with former detainees at a Syrian prison. In September 2023, he plans to open Earshot, "the first agency for sound and acoustic analysis dedicated to open-source investigators and the field of human rights."

Early life and education

Born in Amman,

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

to a Lebanese father and an English mother, Abu Hamdan grew up in

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

in the UK. In the 2000s he played in a series of DIY bands, including Isambard Kingston Brunel, Poltergroom and Cleckhuddersfax, who released records on the London-based label

Upset The Rhythm Upset The Rhythm is an independent record label based in London with a varied roster of leftfield artists and bands; they also operate as a diverse DIY live music promoter. Huw Stephens featured Upset The Rhythm as "purveyors of interesting indi ...

. Abu Hamdan received his PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by ...

in 2017.

Career and artwork

Abu Hamdan describes his work as concerned with the "politics of listening." Describing himself as a "private ear", his work confronts specific instances and examples of listening and the voice as they related to legal and political contexts. In his 2012 radio documentary ''The Whole Truth'', he explored new technologies that were attempting to act as lie-detectors for voices. In a 2015 commission for The Armory Show in New York, he distributed bags of potato chips in foil wrappers. The work built on research undertaken by scientists at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in which they were able to turn common objects into listening devices by capturing vibrations recorded on physical objects and transferring them back into speech. His audio investigations have been used as evidence in UK asylum and immigration courts, and in support of organisations such as

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

and Child Protection International, as well as researchers in forensic architecture. He keeps an
Earwitness Inventory
', which he has described as "both a sound-effects library specifically designed to solicit earwitness testimony for legal and advocacy cases as well as a repository for acoustic experience." He has won awards including the 2016 Nam June Paik New Media Award, the 2020 Edvard Munch Award, and the 2019 Turner Prize, which he won jointly with Helen Cammock,

and Tai Shani. He has held solo exhibitions at multiple institutions including

(2018),

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

(2018) and

(2019), and his work is in the collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, Guggenheim,

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council o ...

, Van Abbe,

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

Museo Reina Sofía Museo may refer to: * ''Museum'' (2018 film), Mexican drama heist film * Museo station, station on line 1 of the Naples Metro {{disambiguation ...

and Tate Modern. Abu Hamdan is a fellow at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, was a guest at the DAAD Artists Program in Berlin in 2017–18, and was a fellow at the

Vera List Center for Art and Politics The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is an American nonprofit research organization and public forum for art, culture, and politics, established in 1992. Vera List was an American art collector and philanthropist. The Vera List Center awa ...

at the

New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers ...

in New York from 2015 to 2017. Lawrence Abu Hamdan is represented by Galerie Mor Charpentier, Paris.

Major works

*''The Whole Truth'' (2012). *''Saydnaya (The Missing 19db)'' (2017). *''After SFX'' (2018). *''Walled Unwalled'' (2018).

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*2012: ''Aural Contract: The Freedom of Speech Itself'',

, London *2014: ''Tape Echo'', part of ''Positions'',

Van Abbemuseum The Van Abbemuseum () in Eindhoven is one of the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. The museum’s collection includes key works and archives by Joseph Beuys, Marc Chagall, René Daniëls, Marlene Dumas, Shee ...

, Eindhoven *2015. ''Taqiyya'', Kunsthalle St. Gallen *2016: ''Earshot'',

Portikus Portikus is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Frankfurt am Main, that was founded in 1987 by Kasper König. The museum is part of Frankfurt's Museumsufer (Museum Riverbank). Portikus presents the work of both internationally renowned ar ...

, Frankfurt *2018: ''Hammer Projects: Lawrence Abu Hamdan'',

, Los Angeles *2018: ''Walled Unwalled'', Tate Modern, London *2018: ''Earwitness Theatre'',

Chisenhale Gallery Chisenhale Gallery is a non-profit contemporary art gallery based in London's East End. The gallery occupies the ground level of a former veneer factory on Chisenhale Road, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, near Victoria Park, To ...

, London *2019: ''Lawrence Abu Hamdan, a solo exhibition'', Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam *2019: ''Lawrence Abu Hamdan'', Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut *2019: ''Lawrence Abu Hamdan'' (Witte de With – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam) *2019: ''Earwitness Theatre'' (Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane) *2019: ''Naqt'' (Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut) *2019: ''The Voice Before the Law'' (Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin) *2020: ''Artist's Rooms: Lawrence Abu Hamdan'' (Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai) *2021: ''São Paulo Art Biennial'' (São Paulo) *2021: ''Dirty Evidence'' (Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm) *2021: ''Green Coconuts and Other Inadmissible Evidence'' (Secession, Vienna) *2022: ''cross border crimes & the witness-machine complex'' (Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg) *2022: ''The Sonic Image'' (Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah) *2023: ''Cross-Border Crimes'' (Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City) *2023: ''Walled Unwalled and Other Monologues'' (Museum of Modern Art, New York) *2023: ''45th Parallel'' (Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh)

Group exhibitions

* British Art Show 8 (2015–17). *

Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Since its launch in 1998, Liverpool Biennial has commissioned over 380 new artworks and presented work by over 530 artists from around the world. ...

(2016). * 3rd New Museum Triennial (2015). *''May You Live in Interesting Times'',

58th Venice Biennale The 58th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art exhibition held between May and November 2019. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Ralph Rugoff curated its central exhibition, ''May You ...

, Venice (2019).

Publications

Awards and fellowships

* Vera List Center Fellow, New School, New York (2015–17) * Nam June Paik Award (2016) *DAAD Visual Artists Residency (2017) *Abraaj Group Art Prize (2018) *20th Baloise Art Prize (2018) *

(2019) * Edvard Munch Award (2020) * Audience Prize of the Toronto Biennale (2022) * Glasgow Short Film Festival: Bill Douglas Award (2023)

References

External links

Word Stress: Lawrence Abu Hamdan in conversation with Anthony Downey
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abu Hamdan, Lawrence 1985 births People from Amman Living people Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Jordanian contemporary artists Turner Prize winners Jordanian emigrants to the United Kingdom