Cultural Exchange Rate
Tania El Khoury
(USA/Lebanon)
16 October 2025 | 11:00am — 8.00pm
17 October 2025 | 11:00am — 6.30pm
18 October 2025 | 10:00am — 7.00pm
£10 - 8 (Concession)
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Theatre (Directions)
The cruellest of borders are invisible to the eye and present in everyday life. The death traps set within a moving body of water and the concealed militarisation of faraway border villages.
Cultural Exchange Rate is an interactive live art project in which artist Tania El Khoury shares her family memoirs of life in a border village between Lebanon and Syria. One marked by war survival, valueless currency collection, brief migration to Mexico, and a river that disregards the colonial and national borders.
The audience is invited to immerse their heads into one family’s secret boxes to explore the sounds, images, and textures of traces of more than a century of border crossings.
Cultural Exchange Rate is based on the artist’s recorded interviews with her late grandmother, oral histories collected in her village in Akkar, the discovery of lost relatives in Mexico City, and the family’s attempt to secure dual citizenship.
Tickets
● Please arrive 15 minutes before the time indicated on your ticket
● The performance will start on time. We cannot accommodate late arrivals.
● If you arrive after your ticketed show has begun (and are thus unable to participate in that show), front-of-house will do their best to get you admission to a later show.
● Please bring cash - especially small bills and coins. Exchange of cash is an (optional) part of the show but we strongly encourage audience members to have cash on hand so they can choose to participate in that way within the installation. Please note: Cash used during the performance will not be returned to audience members.
● The duration of the performance is about 60 minutes
● Tickets are strictly limited. If you purchase a ticket and are unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so that your ticket can be transferred to someone on the waitlist.
Panel
Catch Tania El Khoury in conversation discussing Politics of/in Immersive Performance Experiences on a panel presentation presented by Immersive Experiences Lab.
Access Notes
This is an interactive artwork and self-led experience for ten people at a time.
There is one wheelchair accessible / lower-height route, which can be reserved at point of booking.
Participation includes: exchanging currency, unlocking cabinets, handling artefacts, watching and listening to video and audio, and reading in English. FOH guides are available to support with tasks requiring fine motor skills if required (eg unlocking cabinets and handling artefacts).
SENSORY NOTES
Scents & Fragrance (Natural & Chemical)
Nut Allergen (Almonds)
Small particle dust (Baby Powder)
Tactile Artwork
Audience Participation (Interactive Installation)
Language: Arabic & English with English Subtitles
VENUE AND SEATING:
Theatre (First Floor), Centre for Contemporary Arts- Wheelchair Accessible by Lift. CCA Venue Access Information
This is an unseated interactive experience, with some chairs available.
Content Notes
Themes of war, displacement and migration
Mention of death and loss
Artist Bio
Tania El Khoury is a live artist who creates interactive installations and performances that reflect on the production of collective memory and the cultivation of solidarity. Her work is activated by tactile, auditory and visual materials collected and curated by the artist and her collaborators, ultimately transformed through audience interaction. El Khoury’s work engages questions of displacement, border systems, privatization, and the politics of space. She is the recipient of the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, Soros Art Fellowship, the Bessie Outstanding Production Award, the International Live Art Prize, the Total Theatre Innovation Award, and the Arches Brick Award.
Her work has been translated to multiple languages and shown in 35 countries across six continents in spaces ranging from museums to cable cars. Tania is Distinguished Artist in Residence and Associate Professor of Theater & Performance at Bard College in New York where she is also the founding director of the Center for Human Rights & the Arts.
Show Credits
Production Design: Petra Abousleiman
Research: Ziad Abu-Rish, May Haider, Mariam Saada, and Alexander Mayagoitia
Sound Design: Fadi Tabbal
Graphic Design: Jana Traboulsi
Live Video Editing: Ali Beidoun
Cinematography: Luke Bryant and Tania El Khoury
Spanish Translation: Ziad Chakaroun
Archives: El Khoury Family Papers (Lebanon and Mexico); Archivo General de la Nación (México); SRE - Acervo Histórico Diplomático (México)
Produced by Bard Fisher Center, Spielart Festival, and Onassis Stegi.