Time & Date
Information
Tickets
Onassis Stegi Friends & General Presale: from 14 FEB 2020, 17:00
Full price: 12 €
Reduced, Friend & Groups 5-9 people: 10 €
Groups 10+ people: 9 €
Neighborhood residents, Companions: 7 €
People with disabilities, Unemployed: 5 €
Group ticket reservations at groupsales@onassis.org
Information
The performances can take place only with a specific number of viewers.
Language
In English
Lebanese live artist Tania El Khoury recites the universal, neverending story of migration, through a family diary of the borders.
Photo © Ziad Abu-Rish
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.
Image 1 / 6
Photo: Ali Beidoun
Image 2 / 6
Photo: Tania El Khoury
Image 3 / 6
Photo: Tania El Khoury
Image 4 / 6
Photo: Tania El Khoury
Image 5 / 6
Photo: Tania El Khoury
Image 6 / 6
Photo: Tania El Khoury
A live performance about border crossing
Tania El Khoury has been working on the project “Cultural Exchange Rate” for the last decade. The starting point of this venture was the soul-stirring effort of her father to financially support her when she fled for England. For this purpose, he has granted her his collection of Lebanese liras.
With “Cultural Exchange Rate,” El Khoury collaborates with the Onassis Stegi for the third time. She has previously presented “Gardens Speak” (2016), a recording of Syrian citizens who were killed in the first massive anti-government protests, as well as “The Search for Power” (2019), an installation performance about the scandalous case of power outages in Lebanon. Both her pieces were presented within the context of Fast Forward Festival.
The chapter of immigration has informed the majority of Tania El Khoury’s performances. Suffice it to say that, from 2011 to this day, seven out of eleven pojects of hers comment on aspects of the refugee crisis, as well as the issue of borders.
CREDITS
Production Design
Petra Abusleiman
Research
Ziad Abu-Rish, May Haider, Mariam Saada, Alexander Mayagoitia
Sound Design
Fadi Tabbal
Graphic Design
Jana Traboulsi
Live Video Editing & Motion Graphics
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 (New York), Spielart Festival (Munich), and Onassis Stegi (Athens)
Biography
Embedded media
If you want to enjoy embedded rich media, please customize your cookie settings to allow for Performance and Targeting cookies. Your data may be transferred to third-party services such as YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud and Issuu.
Digital programs, Workshop
Day 2 | Circular Cultures: Design, Fashion, Crafts
Onassis Stegi
Video
A discussion on "Apocalypse" with Nick Knight
Music
Movement | Radio
Athens
Talks & Thoughts
Interfaces Conference
Onassis Stegi
Theater
Granma: Trombones from Havana
Onassis Stegi
Talks & Thoughts
Movement (1920 – 2020)
Onassis Stegi