A hum in the dark.
A hum in the dark. A breath becomes rhythm. A voice repeats until language thins and disappears. Through chanting, chorals, murmurs and drones, the voice becomes a force that exceeds the body that produces it: a vibration capable of summoning awe, dread, and states in which the boundaries of the self begin to loosen.
This exhibition brings together a range of Australian artists, alongside Relativa Radio’s Cicadas, to explore the voice as instrument, threshold and annihilation. Moving across sound, installation, and text, the works consider humming, chanting, spoken language and collective vocalisation as ways of building toward heightened perception — moments where the individual temporarily disappeares into something larger, stranger, and less knowable.
In Choral Cthonics, the mouth and body act as conduits for forces that are communal, elemental and unstable: drawing audiences toward forms of ecstatic loss, dark sublimity and uneasy proximity to the natural, unruly world.
Venue
Gallery 1
Accessibility
- Wheelchair Access
- Assistive Listening
- 50% Visual Content
Credits
Image; Kunstformen der Natur Art Forms in Nature by German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel, courtesy of Cicadas
Supported By
Metro Arts’ 2026 program is supported by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its funding and advisory body. Metro Arts is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and the Visual Art, Craft and Design Framework, an initiative of the Australian, state and territory governments.