Cultural Exchange Rate (2019) and other works

Overview

Tania El Khoury is a live performance artist whose works engage the audience in close encounters with narratives drawn from the political realities of migration, displacement and state violence. Based on oral histories collected from the artist’s family members, Cultural Exchange Rate (2019) encourages visitors to immerse themselves in the sounds, images and textures of life in a village bordering Lebanon and Syria. Visitors become participants in the unfolding story which is marked by the survival of war, the collection of valueless currency, a brief migration to Mexico City and a river that disregards colonial and national borders.

The Search for Power (2018), a lecture performance and installation at Old Al Jubail Vegetable Market, reveals the findings of a collaborative investigation with her historian partner, Ziad Abu-Rish, into how power outages in Lebanon intersect with colonial legacies, political and economic hierarchies as well as everyday resistance and sabotage.