{"id":185981,"date":"2025-09-27T19:38:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T19:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/185981\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T19:38:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T19:38:06","slug":"lawrence-abu-hamdan-brings-the-blast-of-golan-heights-wind-turbines-to-oslo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/185981\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawrence Abu Hamdan Brings the Blast of Golan Heights Wind Turbines to Oslo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tYou hear Lawrence Abu Hamdan<\/a>\u2019s new exhibition before you see it. In Oslo\u2019s gleaming Munch Museum<\/a>, the faint sound of a saxophone drifts out into the 10th floor\u2019s open promenade. The source of the music is found within Gallery 10, an unorthodox space featuring a 28-foot-high ceiling and a slanting wall that mirrors the building\u2019s own signature tilt. It\u2019s here that Abu Hamdan has staged \u201cZifzafa,\u201d a politically charged new exhibition that explores how sound can serve as both a celebration of life and a tool of displacement. Taking its title from the old Arabic word for a fierce wind that shakes and rattles everything in its path, \u201cZifzafa\u201d revolves around Abu Hamdan\u2019s forensic audio investigation into the impact that 31 wind turbines will soon have on the native population in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, or Jawlan, as it\u2019s known in Arabic and referred to by the local Jawlani population.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tThe saxophone comes from one of the three video works on view, the hypnotic single-channel video projection Wind Ensemble (2024), which pumps out the sounds of Jawlani saxophonist Amr Mdah. In a small video projected onto the mesh of an amplifier, Mdah performs a composition on the balcony of a home that will be around 164 feet from one of the new turbines. Across from Wind Ensemble is Tilting at windmills i, ii & iii (2024) which features three short, looping CGI animations that visualize the sound pollution that will soon hover over Jawlan like rainclouds. But the star of this show is the 45-minute film Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay (2025) which takes center stage as four projectors beam it across the gallery\u2019s expansive back wall.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay (2025), Abu Hamdan used the popular online video format of \u201cvideo game walkthroughs\u201d as a framing device to make his own video game, one that re-creates the buildings and sounds of the occupied Jawlan, as well as the planned turbines. Open-source and available online, the game allows anyone to explore the area and experience the sonic impact of these future structures as they drown out the sounds of cultural life. Some of the turbines will be as close as 115 feet away from homes, effectively rendering these spaces uninhabitable once they\u2019re operational.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLawrence Abu Hamdan, Zifzafa, 2024, still from virtual reality audio platform.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy the artist<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRight now, [the game] is the only place where you can turn on the turbines and simulate what it will sound like in the future,\u201d Abu Hamdan said during an introduction to the show, ahead of its opening on September 18. \u201cBut, in the future, it may be the only place where you can turn them off and remember what life was like before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are two key auditory ingredients in the work: the noise from comparably sized turbines in Gailsdorf, Germany, recorded by engineer Adam Laschinger, and hours of field recordings in Jawlan, recorded by local composer and sound artist Busher Kanj Abu Saleh. Moving around the map, players will hear, for example, a man on megaphones inviting anyone within earshot to a wedding; the music of flautist and shepherd, Ibrahim Zen; and the methodical dip of water pumps. It\u2019s the sound of water that most deeply impacted Abu Hamdan, though it would take some time for him to understand the full significance. Because the Israeli state has expropriated access to all water sources, the Jawlani people have built an autonomous network of pipes, ponds, reservoirs, and pumps\u2014a small but vital victory against military occupation. \u201cIn a way, listening to these sounds isn\u2019t just about listening to that environment,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about listening to acts of resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cLawrence Abu Hamdan: Zifzafa,\u201d 2025, at Munch Museum, Oslo.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Ove Kvavik \/ Munchmuseet<\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside the visual and sonic experience of moving through Jawlan, a \u201clive chat\u201d box, a staple of video game walkthroughs, functions as a medium for a roving, context-heavy monologue delivered by the user \u201cEarshot_.\u201d One minute, the chat talks of \u201cthe satisfying plop of the famous Jawlani apple landing in a basket,\u201d before transitioning into explanations of the water restrictions or background on Energix Renewables, the Israeli energy company building the turbines. As the turbines switch on, a string of vivid descriptions for what the noise will be like\u2014\u201chaving a truck pass over your head,\u201d for example\u2014are fed into the chat.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the two other works are of varying quality\u2014the physical effect of Wind Ensemble\u2019s setup is transfixing, if mostly unintentional; the texture of the amp, combined with the darkness of the room, makes the musician look as if he\u2019s been encrusted in diamonds\u2014the three works taken together offer a strong sensory entry point to the Jawlani peoples\u2019 ongoing struggle against Israeli military occupation. The path that brought Abu Hamdan to the region and subsequently to Munch for this exhibition began in 2019, when he won the Edvard Munch Art Award. Though the prize came with the promise of a solo show, construction on the building and the global pandemic pushed back plans.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cLawrence Abu Hamdan: Zifzafa,\u201d 2025, at Munch Museum, Oslo.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Ove Kvavik \/ Munchmuseet<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, the Jordanian, Turner Prize\u2013nominated artist solidified his reputation as \u201cprivate ear\u201d for his immersive art installations and forensic audio investigations into human and environmental rights abuses. Al Marsad, the Arab human rights center in Jawlan, contacted the artist\u2019s nonprofit Earshot in 2023 about simulating the sonic disturbance of proposed wind turbines. For the Jawlani people, the turbines mark another chapter in a long struggle that began with Israel\u2019s seizure of two-thirds of their land in the 1967 Six-Day War. While Energix Renewables claims the turbines will occupy just under 1 mile of space, Abu Hamdan\u2019s research shows their acoustic footprint is nine times larger\u2014roughly a quarter of the land still available to Jawlanis today.<\/p>\n

\n\tStaging a show so overtly critical of Israel in this particular moment\u2014when speaking out against the country\u2019s war of extermination against Palestine has led to pulled funding and outright cancellations in the art world\u2014points to a continuation of an ongoing, if entirely unintentional, throughline in the Munch\u2019s programming. Last November\u2019s Vanessa Baird exhibition, \u201cGo Down With Me<\/a>,\u201d partly addressed<\/a> the suffering of Palestinians through multiple floor-to-ceiling tapestries depicting the brutality of war. And in mid-September, the institution\u2019s Munch Award was given to New York\u2013based Palestinian artist Samia Halaby.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Senior Curator Dr. Tominga O\u2019Donnell, the timing of these events is coincidental, yet still reflects a wider dedication to honoring artistic freedom of expression. \u201cThere is direct censorship and cancellations, obviously, but there\u2019s also this internalized form of self-censorship, which is almost even more insidious,\u201d she told ARTnews. \u201cAs an institution, the only thing we can do is to provide a platform which is as safe as it can be in the current political climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cLawrence Abu Hamdan: Zifzafa,\u201d 2025, at Munch Museum, Oslo.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Ove Kvavik \/ Munchmuseet<\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cZifzafa\u201d project has been shown in other forms in other spaces, but in this particular space it feels as if it\u2019s found a home. And though Abu Hamdan\u2019s sprawling video game occupies the most physical space in the show, it may be the sound of Mdah\u2019s saxophone that lingers the longest after leaving the museum. As Abu Hamdan said of the faint notes drifting out of the gallery, \u201c[I wanted] to help people understand that there are people whose whole sonic world is shaped by that place. It\u2019s an exuberant act of sonic self-determination, and it\u2019s also somehow funerary because we know it\u2019s going to be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You hear Lawrence Abu Hamdan\u2019s new exhibition before you see it. In Oslo\u2019s gleaming Munch Museum, the faint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,109265,109266],"class_list":{"0":"post-185981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-lawrence-abu-hamdan","14":"tag-munch-museum"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}