International Artist Commission Spike Island, Lawrence Abu Hamdan
Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b.1985, Amman, Jordan). His audio investigations have been used as evidence at the UK Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International. He has exhibited at the 58th Venice Biennale; the 11th Gwanju Biennale; the 13th and 14th Sharjah Biennial; Witte De With, Rotterdam; Tate Modern Tanks, London; Chisenhale Gallery, London; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Portikus Frankfurt; The Showroom, London; and Casco, Utrecht. His works are part of collections at MoMA; Guggenheim, (both New York); Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Tate Modern, London. As part of a temporary collective with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, he was awarded the 2019 Turner Prize.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan's new film commission, 45th Parallel, focuses on the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, a unique municipal site that straddles the jurisdictions of Canada and the United States. Filmed on location, 45th Parallel activates this unique site’s legal and symbolic potential. The work is structured as a monologue in four acts, performed by acclaimed film director Mahdi Fleifel. The story centres on Hernández vs Mesa, a judicial case covering the fatal, cross-border shooting of an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican national in 2010 by a US Border Patrol agent.