Lawrence Abu Hamdan's Sonic Investigations Debut in Greece

EMΣΤ (National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens) presents Lawrence Abu Hamdan's first solo exhibition in Greece, featuring two film works that explore sound, borders, and human rights. Abu Hamdan, known as a 'private ear,' uses audio investigations to expose political truths. His work 'Rubber Coated Steel' (2016) reconstructs the 2014 killing of Palestinian teenagers Nadeem Nawara and Mohamad Abu Daher by Israeli soldiers, using audio analysis conducted with Forensic Architecture and Defence for Children International to prove guilt. The film transforms viewers into jurors in a tribunal in absentia, stripping away emotions and sounds to force focus on acoustic evidence. 'Walled Unwalled' (2018) examines the permeability of walls, set in a Cold War-era recording studio in East Berlin. It contrasts the rise of border walls—from 15 in 2000 to 63 today—with muon technology that can see through concrete, rendering all walls penetrable. The work questions state surveillance and the legal-architectural concept of boundaries. The exhibition runs at EMΣT in Athens.