Anthem

“I wish there was an anthem for a place that we could all exist in and that, for me, is the world that Glenn puts out there as a possibility”

        — Wu Tsang

Commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2021 and adapted for Melbourne, Anthem is a large-scale sound and video collaboration between artist Wu Tsang and folk icon Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Together they tap into an anthemic energy that predates propaganda or nation building. Instead, the work evokes an earlier practice of spirituals—an oral tradition, originally passed from one slave generation to the next, that forms the root of most popular music.

Loudness and uniformity is abandoned as Glenn’s otherworldly voice reverberates within St Paul's Cathedral's landmark gothic architecture. He leads us through ambiguous vocal timbres, playful call-and-response, and evolving tints of ambient sound, as visual textures evolve against 19-metre-high silk screen.

In Glenn’s words, music gives him a chance to connect to a “universal broadcast system” and feel messages sent by the universe. Now’s our chance to tune in.

Move among the repurposed pews and stay as long as you wish.