To coincide with Tate Modern's Project Space: Word. Sound. Power. exhibition, featured artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan invites you to a collective listening session and discussion about the relationship of listening to politics, borders, human rights, testimony, truth and international law. Throughout his Aural Contract project Abu Hamdan has built up a sound archive, containing audio extracts of his own work together with specific moments of juridical listening and speaking from a wide range of sources. Examples include the trials of Saddam Hussein and Judas Priest, UK police evidence tapes, films such as Decoder and readings from texts including Italo Calvino’s A King Listens. For the event at Tate the components of this archive are mixed together live, generating a performance/seminar and collective listening session that intends to immerse its audience in the heart of a discussion about the fundamental ways in which we speak and listen today.
Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan is currently on residency at IASPIS Stockholm. His recent solo shows featuring new commissions include The Freedom Of Speech Itself at The Showroom, London 2012 and The Whole Truth at CASCO, Utrecht 2012. Works from these are now being shown at Tate Modern as part of Project Space: Word. Sound. Power. as well as at Extra City, Antwerp (2012) , The Taipei Biennial (2012) and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2013). Abu Hamdan is one of the four artists comprising the group Model Court whose first major solo presentation was Resolution 978 HD at Gasworks, London (2013). His hybridised practice means that he has written for various publications such as Cabinet Magazine and the 10th Sharjah Biennial and is part of the group running the arts space Batroun Projects in north Lebanon. Abu Hamdan is a part of the research team for Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths College where he is also a Phd candidate and lecturer.