Overview

Bird Watching is the latest in a series of Abu Hamdan's live audio essays that examine the contemporary politics of listening and the importance of the earwitness. The central focus of this 'hearing' is Abu Hamdan’s collaboration with Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture on an acoustic investigation into the prison of Saydnaya, located 25 km north of Damascus. The prison is inaccessible to independent observers and monitors. The memories of those who survive it are the only resource available from which to learn of and document the violations still taking place there. However, the capacity of detainees to see anything in Saydnaya was highly restricted as they were mostly kept in darkness, blindfolded or made to cover their eyes. As a result, the prisoners developed an acute sensitivity to sound. Through dedicated and new techniques of earwitness interviews created by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the witnesses reconstructed the architecture and events of the prison they experienced through sound.