Lebanese-British artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan on sound, memory and the Turner Prize

Lebanese-British artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan on sound, memory and the Turner Prize

LONDON: Even the most cursory of web searches for Lawrence Abu Hamdan yields results dominated by the 2019 Turner Prize. After all, Abu Hamdan and his fellow nominees Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani made history when they asked to share the famed arts prize as a collective. The move raised the profile of all four artists, garnering headlines around the world and making them the talk of the art scene.

But to focus entirely on Abu Hamdan's Turner Prize work is to do him a disservice. Though his award-winning work on Saydnaya “” based around interviews with former detainees of the brutal Syrian prison “” has become his highest-profile project (and one that has raised international awareness of human rights violations), his career has seen him amass a substantial portfolio of fascinating exhibitions.

Abu Hamdan shared the Turner Prize with four other nominees for the first time in history. (Getty)

Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai is currently exhibiting Abu Hamdan's 2017 work "This Whole Time There Were No Landmines“ in one of the venue's Artist Rooms until January 3. Featuring mobile-phone footage and audio recordings from 2011, the work documents the moments when the 'shouting valley' “” a part of Syria's