Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat: Là

This essay reviews the exhibition Là by the artist duo Sirah Foighel Brutmann (b.1983) and Eitan Efrat (b.1983) at Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent (SMAK) in 2024. Presented across five galleries, the exhibition is a project of mourning – specifically of the Belgian film-maker Chantal Akerman, who took her own life in 2015. Taking inspiration from Jacques Derrida’s eulogies in The Work of Mourning (2001) in which he ‘speaks’ to his deceased philosopher friends through their writings, Brutmann and Efrat’s dialogue with Akerman, retraces the route she took across the Negev desert while shooting footage for No Home Movie (2015), which documented her mother’s illness and subsequent death.