Lawrence Abu Hamdan: ‘Political struggles all over the world create this debris of sounds’

Turner Prize-winning artist and investigator Lawrence Abu Hamdan will lead Repercussions, described as the Barbican Centre’s first cross-arts takeover spanning visual art, film, music, and performance over four days in London. Hamdan, born in Amman and based in London, founded the nonprofit Earshot in 2023 to apply audio forensic analysis to human-rights research, producing outputs ranging from reports to video games for use in media, advocacy, and legal contexts. The Barbican programme includes a screening of Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955), known for its 30-minute silent burglary sequence, a two-day audio analysis workshop, and Hamdan’s exhibition Zifzafa, which includes a video game about sonic disruption and resistance in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Hamdan says the project draws from Earshot’s archive of sounds from global struggles—citing investigations from places including Honduras, Tanzania, and Gaza—and explores “the sonics of self-determination.” He characterizes political conflict as producing “debris of sounds,” such as sonic weapons, gunshots, and hydraulic door-breacher noises, that can be recontextualized through art.

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