Exhibitions

Prayer

Opens 24-02-2023,  closes 09-03-2023

Central Gallery

Person bowed in prayer

Presented as part of the Mona Foma festival, Prayer is a multi-channel sound installation by James Webb, a South African artist known for site-specific interventions and installations. Audio recordings of prayer, song, and vocal worship from religions and spiritual practices found in lutruwita (Tasmania) are broadcast simultaneously from 12 floor-based speakers. Each speaker transmits its own separate selection of recordings, arranged consecutively and looped, so that when all speakers play at the same time an ever-changing sound environment is experienced.

The project was first exhibited in Cape Town in 2000, and is created in situ every time, with the voices gathered from all the different spiritual practices operating in the host location. These have included, but are not limited to, most denominations of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Sikhism, as well as new religious movements and traditional faiths.

This version, created specifically for Mona Foma, is the 11th iteration of the artwork, and the first in Australia.

Mona Foma logoTMAG logo

Image: James Webb, Prayer (Johannesburg), 2012. Image credit: Anthea Pokroy