The non-profit organisation Earshot has been awarded a three-year studio bursary at the Gasworks. Founded by Jordan-born artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Earshot uses sound in the defence of human and environmental rights. The bursary, backed by the Spanish patron Mercedes Vilardell, provides an annual stipend and covers monthly rent for a studio space at the south London exhibition and residency space.
Abu Hamdan tells The Art Newspaper that the residency at Gasworks gives Earshot a platform to operate independently following an “incubation period” working with the research group and art collective Forensic Architecture.
“Practically, it means carrying out our day-to-day work—investigations, research, commissions, cultural projects—from a space that reflects what Earshot actually is: an organisation working across legal accountability, scientific rigour, and cultural production," he says. "Gasworks is the right environment to test and consolidate that model, and to grow into the organisation we set out to be."
Abu Hamdan is known for work that explores and makes explicit politics of sound and surveillance, whether it be the witness accounts gathered from prisoners tortured at Syria’s Saydnaya prison under former dictator Bashar Al-Assad, or work critiquing the use of accent tests to validate asylum claims in Europe.
According to the Earshot website, the organisation “transforms sound into a tool of justice and restores the soundtrack as a site of evidentiary power. From the sharp crack of gunfire to the oppressive hum of drones, our investigations treat sound as both an acoustic trace of violence and a means of control.” Research in this field has played a key role in advocacy campaigns for organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, including the latter's Saydnaya prison campaign.
When asked about Earshot’s current projects, Abu Hamdan says: “Several things are running in parallel. We’re developing our earwitness interview tool: a methodology and instrument for working with people who heard, rather than saw, an incident, which sits at the core of what we do."
“We also have an original piece of research on coral reefs underway that takes our methods into an environmental register, and from early October we’ll be running a library in residence with Ibraaz [in London]," he adds. "Alongside all of that we’re continuing our core investigative work, and the move to Gasworks gives us the space to hold it together.”
In another significant London event, Abu Hamdan and Earshot will take over the Barbican Centre this autumn (23-26 September). The event, titled Repercussions, will encompass installations, performances, screenings and live music.
“The ground is shifting under the institutions that were meant to hold states and armies to account, and that makes the question of where accountability actually happens more open than it has been in a long time. A programme like Repercussions matters because it treats listening itself as a civic act and brings investigative work into contact with audiences who aren’t necessary reached through legal or journalistic channels,” Abu Hamdan says.
A key project is a performance in the centre's cinema, which will “draw on our earwitness investigation into a reported sonic attack during a silent vigil in Belgrade in March 2025,” he adds. The piece, commissioned by the arts organisation Figura, will include a text by Abu Hamdan, visuals by Earshot’s Hyeongji Yang, and a live score by James Hoff.
