The opening line to the quintessential Armenian folktale, artist-in-residence Levon Kafafian‘s Once There Was and Once There Was Not is an invitation into the speculative past, the incredibility of reality and the fantastic within the mundane. Questions of cross-cultural coexistence and exchange, blurred boundaries and false borders emerge in an immersive scene taken from the pages of Kafafian’s forthcoming graphic novel Portal Fire. Objects, sound and installation create a glimpse into an imagined world between a magical past and a technological future.

A limited-engagement participatory performance art piece by Tania El Khoury and Basel Zaraa. Participants listen to Zaraa’s song reflecting on his sisters’ journey from Syria to Sweden while Zaraa draws in paint and ink on their arm. The story can be kept or washed away. Through touch and sound, this intimate encounter explores empathy and whether we need to literally “feel” a refugee in order to understand the effect of border discrimination on peoples’ lives.