Design: Maeve Redmond
To accompany Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s exhibition ‘Zifzafa’, the Room for Reading offers insights into Abu Hamdan’s practice and its surrounding research.
‘Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth’, Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman (2021)
This book considers the emergence of a new field of visual investigation, as artists become radically engaged in exposing corruption and repressive technologies through artworks, and journalists and legal investigators make use of sensory and aesthetic exploratory faculties more associated with creative practitioners, artists and architects. Fuller and Weizman consider a new experience of ‘common sensing’, as a exploration of the commons as both as a site of struggle and negotiation, and how investigation can become a site of collectivity building.
‘Investigative Aesthetics’ specifically examines the practices of Wikileaks, Bellingcat and Forensic Architecture, directed by author Eyal Weizman and with whom Abu Hamdan previously worked as a research fellow and sound expert.
‘Sound arts now’, Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle (2021)
This collection of interviews with artists and curators offers a wide-ranging survey of what sound arts looks like today. Focusing on practices usually overlooked within the white, male dominated arena, ‘Sound arts now’ seeks to destabilise the canon and consider new pathways in the field.
The book includes an interview between Abu Hamdan and Angus Carlyle from 2020 within which they discuss Abu Hamdan’s dual practice of audio investigator and artist, his adaptation of ‘the master’s tools’, and ‘putting sound back into the world’.
‘The Geopolitics of Green Colonialism: Global Justice and Ecosocial Transitions’, edited by Miriam Lang, Mary Ann Manahan and Breno Bringel (2024)
Through a series of essays written by some of today’s most important ecological, geopolitical and economic theorists, this book discusses the grave impact of the Global North’s responses to climate change on the Global South. Drawing on global case studies, the authors discuss the injustice of climate justice and green colonialism projects, towards imagining a fairer and more liveable future for all.
Abu Hamdan’s ‘Zifzafa’ evidences a green colonialism project in action with the proposal of colossal 256 metres tall wind turbines in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, whose sonic presence will render the area both uninhabitable and unfarmable, by Israeli company, Energix Renewables.
‘Further Listening: On Adventurous Music and Sound’, Edited by Katía Truijen (2026)
Published by Page Not Found (NL) and Rewire on the occasion of their 15th festival edition, ‘Further Listening’ brings together contemporary artists, musicians, sonic researchers in an examination of contemporary music and sound practice, its infrastructures, technologies and geographies.
The book features an essay by Abu Hamdan on the rise of noise-cancel technologies and what it means to opt out of listening.
Details
In conjunction with our projects, exhibitions and events, Room for Reading offers artists we work with an opportunity to contribute to The Common Guild library and share the books and resources that have influenced their artistic practice.
Every artist’s selection is added to The Common Guild’s expansive reference library of artist books, catalogues, and cultural and critical theory.
Visit
Visit our Library space Thursday-Saturday, 12–5pm while exhibitons are open.
