‘To cough was to risk death’: the artist who mapped Syria’s Sednaya prison with testimonies from its survivors

‘Sednaya must now be used to serve the thousands of lives which were imprinted by it’ ... people gather outside the prison on 9 December. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

In 2016, I worked with Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International to lead the acoustic part of the investigation into Sednaya, the Assad regime’s most notorious prison. Since the uprising against the regime began in 2011 until the early hours of Sunday, the prison had been inaccessible to journalists and independent observers. The memories of the few people who have been released were the only resources available to learn about and then document the mass-murder, torture and violation that took place there.

In Sednaya, prisoners’ capacity to see anything was highly restricted. From the time detainees were taken from their homes or pulled out of protests and thrown into cells, they were blindfolded. In the cells they were kept in darkness, made to cover their eyes and face the wall in the presence of the guards. Over time, they developed an acute sensitivity to sound. My task, as an artist and audio investigator, was to develop “earwitness” interviews with six survivors of Sednaya, using their sonic memories to help reveal the crimes that took place inside.