We acknowledge the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the Country on which the Art Gallery of New South Wales stands.

Projections #1: Lawrence Abu Hamdan x Basma Alsharif

By Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd, curator, film

Still from Deep sleep

The opening program in our Projections series at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, exploring future directions in the moving image, featured works by Turner Prize-winning artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan (Lebanon) and Basma Alsharif (Palestine/Kuwait):

  • Walled/Unwalled (director Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 2018, digital)

  • Deep sleep (director Basma Alsharif, 2014, 16mm-to-digital)

  • Rubber coated steel (director Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 2016, digital)

The session explored auditory evidence, borders and the politics of listening in a settler colony, followed by a response by Andrew Brooks.

Brooks is a writer, artist, editor, and teacher who lives on Wangal land. He is motivated by an ongoing commitment to study as a practice of everyday life and is interested in the politics of listening, the relationship between infrastructure and inequality, and histories of resistance and survival. He makes texts, exhibitions, events, and meals and is one half of the critical art collective Snack Syndicate.  

Video still of a dark room with vertical streams of blue-green light on the left and a room with red material and a video monitor on the right.

Still from Walled/Unwalled, 2018