The audio-visual performance Measuring Narrative With Water uses language as a measuring tool: how closely does it approximate what we want to tell?

In the 1920s, Knud Heckscher, Sirah Foighel Brutmann’s great-grandfather, describes his experiences while traveling by waterways from Copenhagen to Bangkok and back. Heckscher’s succinct descriptions of his experiences reveal colonial white man’s fear of the unknown. At the same time, he feels threatened by an imported anti-Semitism. Foighel Brutmann performs excerpts from the letters in different languages, retellings, and accents.

With electronic effects and acoustic sounds, performed live by Eitan Efrat, the makers emphasize the physicality of the different languages used by Foighel Brutmann. On a screen we see text, projections of black-and-white photographs Heckscher took in Bangkok, and colorful video footage of watery phenomena. What fluids pass through us and affect us? To what extent are we responsible for the histories we inherit?

Text written by Natalie Gielen.

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Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat

Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat have been collaborating for several years now, creating audio-visual installations and performances. They both live and work in Brussels. In their work, they explore the ways in which images can be interpreted, how long we can pass stories from generation to generation and the influence of memory on this. Their works have been shown in duo exhibitions in several international arts centres and at festivals. Sirah and Eitan are currently teaching at ERG, Brussels. They support the struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people in Palestine and around the world, and therefore refuse any monetary transaction with government-subsidised institutions in Israel.