Lawrence Abu Hamdan – Artist Talk

To mark the launch of ‘Zifzafa’ at The Common Guild, Lawrence Abu Hamdan will discuss the installation and the collaborative research processes that contributed to ‘Zifzafa’ during an artist’s talk in our Library.

Self-described as the ‘Private Ear’, Abu Hamdan has over a decade of experience investigating audio on behalf of people under attack from state authorities. He has a doctorate from the University of London on the role of sound in legal investigations, and his investigative work has been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and in a formal request to the International Criminal Court. In 2023 he founded Earshot the world’s first not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the study of audio for human rights and environmental advocacy.

His work has been presented in the form of forensic reports, lectures and live performances, films, publications, and exhibitions all over the world, including at the 61st and 58th Venice Biennale, MoMA New York, MUAC Mexico, the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial, the 34th Biennial of São Paulo, the Tate Modern, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. Abu Hamdan has been widely recognized internationally with awards such as the Grand Prix at Winterthur International Film Festival, the 2020 Toronto Biennial Audience Award, the 2019 Edvard Munch Art Award, which included being given a solo exhibition at MUNCH. This was the first presentation of ‘Zifzafa’.

The Artist Talk will be followed by a late opening of ‘Zifzafa’, from 7–8.30pm, to mark the launch of the exhibition. All welcome.