The Common Guild presents a solo exhibition with Lawrence Abu Hamdan, our second project with the artist. ‘Zifzafa’ (2024) is exhibited for the first time in the UK in collaboration with Edinburgh Art Festival. Lawrence Abu Hamdan presents the multichannel installation ‘Zifzafa’ for the first time in the UK at The Common Guild, in collaboration with Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF). The companion performance will also take place as part of EAF26’s closing weekend. ‘Zifzafa’ marks the second time The Common Guild have worked with Abu Hamdan, following ‘Live Audio Essays’, presented in 2024 for Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art. Through his practice of “forensic listening”, artist, sound investigator and founder of Earshot.ngo, Lawrence Abu Hamdan creates performance, sound and video works that explore the political force of sonic experience. ‘Zifzafa’ (2024) is an expansive body of work that comprises a multichannel audiovisual installation, performance and video game which demonstrate the effects of noise pollution and green colonialism activities in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. ‘Zifzafa’ is an archaic and sonorous word borrowed from Arabic poetry describing a wind that shakes and rattles everything in its path. Abu Hamdan’s audio investigation, conducted with fellow researchers at Earshot, and the Arab human rights centre Al Marsad, contests the proposed construction of 31 of the world’s largest land-based wind turbines in the last remaining open space for Jawlani Syrians. The Jawlan population have faced continuous acts of expropriation and dispossession since 1967. Developed over two years within the Golan Heights community, ‘Zifzafa: Livestream Audio Essay’ (2025) is a video game simulation demonstrating the intense sonic impact of the proposed wind turbines on local residents. A supposed green energy project, each of the colossal 256-metrestall turbines are anticipated to generate between 70–90dB of noise – an intensity of sound equivalent to a busy highway. Some turbines are planned as close as 35 meters to homes, their sonic footprint rendering the area uninhabitable and effectively enforcing a sonic annexation. The video simulation digitally maps the sonic footprint of a similar wind farm site, recorded in Germany, across the existent geography of the Golan Heights. These sounds are met with field recordings of natural and community life captured by Jawlani composer and sound artist, Busher Kanj Abu Saleh. Sounds of bees, cows, thunder, saxophones, shovels, weddings, and playing children are inserted using gaming software. The video exists as both a piece of environmental evidence, demonstrating green colonialism in action, and as a record of a soon-to-be past version of the Golan Heights. ‘Wind Ensemble’ (2024) is a video projection onto stacked amps featuring Jawlani musician Amr Mdah performing his own composition for saxophone on a farmhouse balcony. The house on which he is performing will be 50 metres away from one of the proposed turbine sites. Drawn to the relationship between Mdah’s breath and the natural sounds of the Jawlani landscape, Abu Hamdan presents a visually simple, yet stirring, act of sonic defiance. ‘Tilting at Windmills i, ii & iii’ (2024) is a three-channel video whose title refers to the idiom, meaning to fight enemies who do not really exist. This phrase originally appeared in Miguel de Cervantes ‘Don Quixote’ (1615) in a sequence where the protagonist charges towards windmills thinking they are giants. In this defiant image, Abu Hamdan questions the ability to fight against the proposed turbines whilst presenting visualisations of the sound impact the turbines will have on the surrounding landscape. Artist Talk + Exhibition Launch On Wednesday 26th August, Lawrence Abu Hamdan will discuss the exhibition and his broader practice during an artist’s talk in our Library. Free tickets, booking recommended. 'Zifzafa’ Live Performance On Saturday 29 August, a live performance of ‘Zifzafa’ will be held at Leith Theatre on the closing weekend of EAF26 (14–30 August 2026). The performance is scored by Busher Kanj Abu Saleh, who will perform live together with saxophonist Amr Mdah and Fabio Cervi, an audio investigator from Earshot. You can book a ticket via https://edinburghartfestival.com.

Description supplied by the event organiser.