Lawrence Abu Hamdan

Lawrence Abu Hamdan was born in 1985 in Amman, Jordan.
He lives and works between Dubaï and Beirut. Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and “private ear” whose projects have taken the form of audiovisual installations, performances, graphic works, photography, Islamic sermons, cassette tape compositions, potato chip packets, essays, and lectures. In 2013 Abu Hamdan’s audio documentary The Freedom of Speech Itself was submitted as evidence at the UK asylum tribunal where the artist himself was called to testify as an expert witness.
He continues to make sonic analyses for legal investigations and advocacy - most recently his work was prominently part the No More Forgotten Lives campaign for Defence for Children International. The artist’s forensic audio investigations are
conducted as part of his research for Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths College London.

Selected solo exhibitions were presented at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, the Institute of Modern Art, Birsbane, the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis and Witte de With, Rotterdam in 2019; the Chisenhale Gallery, London and the Hammer
Museum, LA in 2018. Additionally his works have been exhibited and performed at institutions and international events such as Venice Biennale (2019); Tate Modern (2018) ; Sharjah Biennale (2019-2017) ; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2017); Contour Biennale, Mechelen, Belgium (2017); MACBA, Barcelona, Spain (2017) and Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2016), among others. Lawrence Abu Hamdan has won the 2017 Abraaj Art Prize and the 2016 Nam June Paik Awards. He’s also the co-winner
of the Turner Prize 2019.