About Wall of Song

Wall of Song Project is a collaborative and participatory art and civic singing platform designed to build a growing video chorus and collective singing ritual—a ‘Wall of Song’—through a mutually generative cycle of online singing, gallery installations, sport stadium and cathedral performances, and public events.

Wall of Song’s first project, developed by artists Mel Day and Michael Namkung, launched on Inauguration Day in 2017 simultaneously at San José Institute of Contemporary Art and Washington, D.C. as a growing video installation and live collective singing of Leonard Cohen’s ‘HALLELUJAH’. It traveled widely to include hundreds of live and virtual voices, and a large-scale performance and video installation at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.

Day created Wall of Song’s second FEELING GOOD Project, a participatory virtual/live singing of ‘Feeling Good’—the song made famous by Nina Simone—in collaboration with Dr. Akilah Carter-Francique, The Institute for the Study of Sport, Society & Social Change, and affinity partners from 2019-2022.

Mel Day is a Bay Area multi-disciplinary artist focused on performance, community engagement, and social justice. She co-founded The Wall of Song Project and welcomes designing site-specific, interactive performances. She has shared her work with a wide variety of venues, including the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San José Museum of Art (virtually), San José Institute of Contemporary Art, Berkeley Art Museum, Provident Credit Union Event Center stadium, and internationally.

Title IX Finds Its Song” Exhibition Essay by Peggy Phelan

Engage with one of our IX Calls-to-Action in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX

About Feeling Good

 

We launched ‘Feeling Good’ as a sport stadium singing event in February 2020 as a participatory half-time performance in concert with National Girls & Women in Sports Day, during an SJSU Women’s Basketball game. For this inaugural event, artist Mel Day worked in collaboration with Dr. Akilah Carter-Francique, The Spartan Marching Band, SJSU Choirs, a Jumbotron video chorus of fans and athletes, and a number of affinity partners, including the pioneering Institute for the Study of Sport, Society & Social Change. And we continue to grow our video chorus for women’s sports and social change efforts as part of a generative cycle of art and sporting events. See this highlight reel to learn more about our inaugural event. 

 

Why sing FEELING GOOD? Read our FAQ & Media Kit. 

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PREVIOUS PROJECT

Originally co-founded by artists Mel Day and Michael Namkung, Wall of Song Project began as a participatory, evolving video installation and live singing event that invited people—no matter their ability to carry a tune—to record themselves singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Hundreds of participants’ faces were layered together into a growing democratic chorus and video installation—such that no one voice or face stood out. In this time of great unknowing and uncertainty, this was a different kind of wall that brought us together.

ONGOING PROJECT

The Institute for the Study of Sport, Society and Social Change and The Wall of Song Project invite you to sing FEELING GOOD—the song made famous by Nina Simone—as a call-to-action, an anthem of solidarity for women’s athletics and a more equitable, racially just community.