Inspired by old telephone exchanges, The Exchange is an audio installation designed to hold conversations around a certain theme. The Exchange started life in early 2020 as an in-school project to gather children’s thoughts, ideas and concerns about the issues currently facing the environment. However as the COVID-19 situation developed the children we were working with started to have more questions about ‘the bug’ than the environment and when schools across the country shut down in March 2020 we took the decision to change the focus of the project.

During the national lockdown that followed 150 children from across Cheshire, including children from the school we had been working with pre-lockdown, took part in an online adventure to ‘Save The Exchange’ during which they took part in a series of creative tasks to share their individual thoughts and experiences of life in lockdown. 

In 2024, The Exchange enjoyed a second iteration, forming part of Cheshire West and Chester’s Reflections programme it explored the pandemic from the perspective of people within the social care sector. Through a series of artist-led workshops and focus groups, we conducted a series of interviews exploring the impact of the pandemic on both staff and service users within the care sector. The resulting conversations are now gathered in this interactive audio installation. The Exchange invites audiences to uncover some of these hidden stories, and also reflect on their own individual experiences.