Anton’s hand is made of Guilt. No muscle or Bone. He has a Gung-ho finger and a Grief-stricken Thumb, 2023

This is  a research-driven documentary project based on actual events, a lipogram and an imaginary anthropological study in one. It comprises original photographs produced by Edgar Martins, civilian images  sourced from private Gaddafi-loyalist and Islamist combatant dark web forums, a facsimile book of drawings  of war scenes (drawn directly on a Gaddafi “Green Book”), a sonic album of probing and palliative soundscapes recorded by the artist on location and myriad audio-visual installations using projection, film and devices retrieved from the Libyan black markets (such as mobile phones).

Developed in North Africa over six years, this project is based on a poignant and very personal story and experience: the death and disappearance of Edgar Martins’ close friend – photojournalist Anton Hammerl – during the 2011 Libyan war.
Inspired by the writings of Georges Perec and Georges Didi-Huberman, and set against the backdrop of the decisive but paradoxical role that photography has played in conflict zones, Martins’ project uses Anton’s story as a springboard to explore a challenging premise: how to tell a story when there is no witness, no testimony, no evidence, no subject.

In an effort to answer this, Martins retraced Anton’s journey, visiting the places he travelled through and the place where he met his end . Moreover, he engaged with a carefully selected group of people  implicated or impacted by the conflict (militants, freedom fighters, Gaddafi loyalists, local residents, Libyan dissidents in hiding, etc.).  Martins’ attempt at closure, however, is fundamentally complicated, even perpetually deferred. In documenting what can only ever be constituted as an absence, the photograph becomes what Martins terms as an “impossible document” – a trace of the unbridgeable divide between signifier and signified, language and experience.

In this sense, this project is about much more than honouring a slain friend. It portrays a complex story, warped by absences, that talks of the difficulty of documenting, testifying, witnessing, remembering and imagining war, as well as its information/misinformation ecosystem.

This project was produced with the support of  the Human Rights Watch, the Foundation for Sciences and Technology, Portugal, and the Archive of Modern Conflict. This expansive undertaking is Martins’ most ambitious and personal to date.