Rethinking Cultural Exchange as Relation

Cultural relations are shaped by histories of encounter, translation, circulation, mediation, power and inequality, as well as by the infrastructures, economies and institutions through which culture moves. Cultures are not discrete entities nor bounded objects that can simply be exchanged, they speak to a set of value-orientations, historical power relations and bring the social praxis in cultural practice. But if culture is dynamic and relational, then what exactly is being "exchanged"?

For decades, the term ‘cultural exchange’ has been used to describe international cultural ‘cooperation’. Yet the concept remains disconnected to scholarship on cultural work from outside of the West. The term implies a reciprocity and symmetry that does not reflect how cultural relations operate or how they have been historically developed. To ‘exchange’ assumes an agreed set of inter-relationships, shared partnerships or trade-offs. This forum asks that the context of cultural exchange and cultural relations bear witness to forms of survival, power, kinship and situatedness. These relations are at the root of and feeds into many disciplinary practices while informing cultural ecosystems, industries, and technologies.

Bringing together scholars, artists, curators, media theorists, cultural practitioners, and policy makers between Africa and Europe, the programme seeks to develop a richer understanding of the histories and futures of cultural exchange. Across a series of symposia in 2026 - 2027, the project aims to critically examining the metaphor of cultural exchange, it asks how cultural institutions might better understand, and more precisely articulate, the forms of cultural praxis that define this work today.

The programme is set to unfold across South Africa, Germany and Morocco with host institutions from October 2026 – February 2027. Dates and venues to be released via the Goethe-Institut website and social media.