“Prayer (Chicago)” is a multi-channel sound installation comprising 240 recordings of prayer and vocal worship from religions found in Chicago, broadcast simultaneously from 12 floor-based speakers. Each speaker transmits its own separate selection of prayers, arranged consecutively and looped, so that when all speakers play at the same time an ever 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 prayers collected from all the different religious groups operating in the host city. These have included, but are not limited to, most denominations of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism, as well as new religious movements and traditional, pre-Christian faiths.
Selected recordings can be heard at https://m.soundcloud.com/theotherjameswebb/sets/prayer
“Prayer (Chicago)” is the 10th city-specific iteration of the artwork, and its first time in North America. It was created in the summer of 2018, and produced by Allie Beck and Brontë Mansfield, and supported by the SAIC and Artworkers Retirement Society. Thank you to Matthew S. Witkovsky, the Witkowsky family, James Rondeau, all at the AIC, Becca Schlossberg, Anna Ploegman, Jim Iska, Mark McCain, Allie Beck, Brontë Mansfield, and Lina Kinning.
Courtesy the artist, The Art Institute Of Chicago, blank projects, and Galerie Imane Farès. Photography by Art Institute of Chicago and Jordan Fuller.
