A new solo exhibition investigates the political weight of sound, from electromagnetic interference to the sonic aftermath of war.
45th Parallel, 2022. Video, colour, sound, 15 minutes. Edition 5 + 2 AP. Installation view, ‘Someone Chewing’, 2025, Sfeir-Semler Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon.
Sfeir-Semler Gallery is pleased to present a new solo exhibition by Lawrence Abu Hamdan at its Karantina space in Beirut, opening on Thursday, 3 April 2025. The evening will include a live performance by the artist at 7 pm.
Describing himself as a “Private Ear,” Abu Hamdan operates at the intersection of art, activism, and forensics. His audio investigations—used in courtrooms, advocacy campaigns, journalistic exposés, and gallery installations—explore how sound can bear witness and carry political weight.
In ‘Someone Chewing’, Abu Hamdan turns his attention to noise as subject and method. The exhibition gathers recent and new works that examine how sound is weaponised, controlled, and resisted. “Power resides with those who define what constitutes noise,” the artist notes—a principle that threads through his examination of Cairo’s urban soundscape in the aftermath of the 2013 military coup, as well as his most recent research in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, where the installation of wind turbines near residential areas has stirred public dissent.
One work in the exhibition presents a video game developed in collaboration with researchers at Earshot—the non-profit Abu Hamdan founded in 2023 to study audio for human rights and environmental advocacy. Based on turbine recordings from Gaildorf, Germany and ambient noise from the Golan Heights, the game is presented in the style of a live-streamed playthrough, with commentary by the artist.
Other new works investigate less audible forms of interference. Abu Hamdan explores the electromagnetic fields generated by everyday electronic devices, and the disruption of cameras and livestreams used by journalists in Gaza and Lebanon. In one installation, the artist composes the final distorted frames captured by targeted recording equipment—transforming acts of censorship into a haunting document of resilience.
In the gallery’s cinema space, visitors can view 45th Parallel (2022), Abu Hamdan’s award-winning film set in the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a unique building straddling the border of Canada and the United States. The work considers how sound, law and architecture complicate seemingly fixed ideas of jurisdiction and belonging.
Through installation, sound, and moving images, ‘Someone Chewing’ furthers Abu Hamdan’s ongoing commitment to using the pervasiveness of sound as a medium to expose injustice and amplify resistance.
The exhibition is on view until the 1st of August 2025. For more information, please visit Sfeir-Semler Gallery.
