Critic’s Pick:
Drawing on sound recordings and descriptions of sonic experience, Abu Hamdan’s work has been a sustained critique of the hierarchy of senses in how we witness and come to grips with what we think of as the ‘truth’. His new work presented at Chisenhale draws on his crucial work around the Syrian military prison Saydnaya, part of which was included at the Forensic Architecture exhibition at the ICA earlier this year. Drawing from prisoners’ descriptions of what they heard while held there while mostly hooded or blindfolded, alongside a treated recording of some of the detainees testaments, this show displays some of the objects the artist has used to refine and aid their testimonies: pasta, shoes and pine cones. These are the tools of the contemporary Foley artist and human rights activist, helping us retrieve from silence some evidence of what went on within the prison’s walls.
- Chris Fite-Wassilak
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