Nice Screams - Citizens Anthem

EVA International 2016

 

NICE SCREAMS – A CITIZENS’ ANTHEM is a non-profit multidisciplinary art project by Deirdre Power and Softday (Sean Taylor, Mikael Fernström), which aims to engage socially with interested citizens by creating a sound artwork on the streets of Limerick on Sunday 24th April 2016. The project attempts to create a space for reflection and debate addressing issues pertinent to the relationship between national identity and music. The historical precedent we draw upon was a public competition that the Dublin Evening Mail ran in June 1924 to find a new anthem for the county.

 

A prize of £50 was offered for lyrics only, the presumption being that music to accompany the lyrics could be written later. Cultural luminaries W.B. Yeats, Lennox Robinson and James Stephens were employed to assess the quality of the submissions and select a winner. However on the 22nd October, the Dublin Evening Mail was obliged to publish its committee’s decision that having “read the poems… we are all agreed that there is not one amongst them worth fifty guineas or any portion of it”.

 

Drawing parallels on debates, past and present, we look at public participation and engagement. Referencing the establishment of the anthem, we consider notions of ‘high’ art over popular culture, control, ownership and issues regarding copyright. We ask; who ultimately owns an anthem? How do we perceive ourselves as a republic and how inclusive is nationalism in the current contemporary society/globalized world?

 

Deirdre Power & Softday (Sean Taylor & Mikael Fernstrom) 2016.

 

The NICE SCREAMS – A CITIZENS ANTHEM project is part of the EVA International, Biennale of contemporary art exhibition, which opens in Limerick in April 2016.