The 8th Letter

Fascinated by the concepts of borders, visual artists and film makers Effi & Amir are exploring the place where individual phonetic experience meets collective territorial history. 

The 8^th letter, H, is the letter that started Effi & Amir's research into the both ancient and contemporary practice of ‘Shibboleth’, the determination of a person's group-belonging by a feature of their speech. In this participatory performance they invite a limited audience of 20 people per session to explore together a familiar yet sometimes alien field, that of our vocal apparatus. Around a round table, lines are drawn, sounds are measured and stories are told of how a voice becomes a border and a collection of sounds (a phoneme) becomes a checkpoint. 
 
• Effi & Amir, born and raised in Israël, have been working as a duo since 1999 and have been living in Brussels since 2005. They studied fine arts at the Bezalel Academy and The Sandberg Institute and taught themselves later how to make films. They also make video installations, performances and participatory projects and are laureates of the Scam 2022 ‘Prix de Parcours’ for audiovisual documentary work.