Beirut
Describing himself as a ‘Private Ear’, Lawrence Abu Hamdan uses his background in music production to make artworks about the power of speech and the threat of surveillance. He is nominated for the 2019 Turner Prize in part for Earwitness Theatre, a project featuring interviews with survivors of Syria’s Saydnaya prison, where inmates are forbidden to make any noise. Developed from a 2016 commission from Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture, it was exhibited at the Chisenhale Gallery in London last year. He has also recently had monographic shows at the Witte de With Center in Rotterdam, Tate Modern and the Hammer Museum. His work is in the permanent collections of Arts Council England and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
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