‘Bird Watching (performance + screening/q&a)’

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a contemporary artist from Jordan who is currently based in Beirut. His work is concerned with the relationship between listening, politics, human rights, testimony and truth. Bird Watching is the latest in a series of Abu Hamdan’s live audio essays that examine the contemporary politics of listening and the importance of the ear witness. The central focus of this ‘hearing’ is his collaboration with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture on an acoustic investigation into Saydnaya prison, 25 km north of Damascus. The prison is inaccessible to independent observers and monitors. The memory of those who survive it is the only resource available from which to learn of and document the violations still taking place there. The capacity of detainees to see anything in Saydnaya was highly restricted as they were mostly kept in darkness, blindfolded. As a result, the prisoners developed an acute sensitivity to sound. Through dedicated and new techniques of ear witness interviews created by Abu Hamdan, the witnesses reconstruct the architecture and events of the prison they experienced through sound.

Rubber Coated Steel (Lawrence Abu Hamdan, LB/DE, 2017, 21', st. EN). May 2014: two unarmed Palestinian teens are killed by Israeli soldiers on the West Bank. Abu Hamdan made an audio analysis to ascertain whether rubber or live bullets were used. The film centers on the gunfire, yet no shots are heard. Rubber Coated Steel does not preside over the voices of the victims but seeks to amplify their silence, questioning the ways in which rights are being heard today.