THE CONVERSATION #4: Lawrence Abu Hamdan

The continuation of SPACE’s conversation publishing platform.

Through several recent works Lawrence Abu Hamdan has been engaging in the politics of listening and voice; particularly looking at how ideology can be embedded into individual phonemes. Throughout the Aural Contract project Abu Hamdan has been seeking answers about the contemporary role of the voice and as such has interviewed and had a sustained dialogue with linguists, asylum seekers, mathemeticians, lawyers, judges, interpreters, typists and doctors.

As part of a new research here the artist is joined in conversation with a theologian from Lebanon’s Druze religious community. The doctrine of the transnational Druze minority has a specific interest in the voice and the speech of its members are highly conditioned through a set of ethico-religious practices.

By looking at the Druze religious theology and philosophy through the micro-politics of phonemes and voice this conversation attempts to show how minoritarian thinking can allow us to re-read fundamental issues of silence, free speech and testimony.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan is a London based artist. He is in residency at The White Building between January and March, 2014. Recent exhibitions includeThe Freedom Of Speech Itself at The Showroom, London and The Whole Truth at CASCO, Utrecht. Abu Hamdan is a part of the research team for Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, where he is also a PhD candidate and lecturer.

The Conversation is a rolling project at SPACE. Over the last year we have staged a series of conversations between our studio or current residency artists and selected interlocutors.

Documented and transcribed prior to the opening of each exhibition cycle, the finalised conversation takes the form of a conventional transcript (available as an in-gallery print out and a PDF to download online download). In addition, each conversation artist is asked to select a relevant image or short text to appear behind the front desk of the gallery for the duration of the exhibition.

The project began in January 2013 when Clunie Reid was joined by glamour model/internationally recognised body builder Jodie Marsh and continued with a dialogue between Patricia Lennox-Boyd and writer Alexander Zevin. Following this Bloomberg ON studio bursary award winner Sophie Lee spoke with chef and artist, Carlos Monleon Gendall.

/// Private View 23 Jan, 6 – 9pm ///