Contra Diction: Speech Against Itself

In Contra Diction: Speech Against Itself, Abu Hamdan seeks to explore the ways in which our right to silence can be preserved in today’s all-hearing and all-speaking society. In his reappraisal of silence and its politics, the artist looks to the linguistics of Taqiyya, an old piece of Islamic jurisprudence practiced only by esoteric minorities that allows a believing individual to deny their faith or commit otherwise illegal acts if they are at risk of persecution or in a condition of statelessness.

By looking into stories of alleged mass conversions of the Druze minority in northern Syria, Abu Hamdan indicates how such minor speech acts can help us reappraise the precision of speaking, the many ways of remaining silent, and the inherently unfaithful nature of the voice. The work is realized as a two-channel video installation (also sometimes as a live performance) with a teleprompter, the speech apparatus from which the political lie often originates. Formally, as a video playback device, it symbolizes both duplicity and transparency.

The installation of Contra Diction: Speech Against Itself (2015) was commissioned by Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (2015).