[dentifier] K2026-001

"For Foighel Brutmann and Efrat, the desert is not a counterpoint or an alternative frame of reference, but the subject itself: a region whose culture is being erased continuously, day after day." Rose Higham-Stainton in TANK, 2024.

Là ensemble is an audio-visual installation with 11 16mm projectors and screens. The looped films travel along route 3199 between Arad and Masada in the Al-Naqab desert in Israel/Palestine, the same road Chantal Akerman took in her final film. Through film and video, the work focuses on the native and imported plants that grow there, examining how their distribution shapes the definition of a location or a landscape, and how plants are both witnesses and instruments of history writing.
Each projector plays a short visual poem that represents a certain aspect of the desert environment, which has been shaped and conditioned by the Israeli occupation of the land. Through optical sound, each projector plays the note 'la' (A), each time performed by a different musician or friend. This results in a never-ending and continually changing sound composition that creates an imaginary and temporary community.
Every few minutes, the sound is ruptured by silence, a sudden cut. In these intervals of return, you not only become aware of your environment, but also of your own presence and participation in this temporary space.