Arts Writers is a new collaborative initiative between Glasgow International, Glasgow School of Art and The List, which sees students from the Glasgow School of Art's Master of Letters in Art Writing programme write features and reviews about works at this year's Glasgow International. The writers and critics will receive mentorship and publication via The List. The next work in this series is a feature on TENEU by Jen Martin.

As part of Glasgow International 2021's digital programme, TENEU meets the festival in ways we have become accustomed to throughout this year and the last. Linked through the GI website, the sound work sits alongside research and information about the project and its collaborators. With a bilingual vocal performance from Cass Ezeji, a drum track devised by Sean Patrick Campbell and David Scott, TENEU is a narration of the city, by the city's patron, written 'through' the less-revered St Teneu, or as Glasgow familiars might know her, St Enoch.

If the city voiced its opinions, perspectives and concerns, what would it sound like? One could only imagine the voice of St Teneu, one of the founders of the city of Glas Ghu (Glasgow) as saint-like. What even is it, to be saint-like? A light glance at the history of this saint frontlines Teneu as a victim of male violence and an unmarried mother, and more transpires about the many variations of her recorded name: Thanew, Thennaw, Taneu. St Teneu is imagined anew, through a lyrical text that makes the saint omnipresent through time. She is with Glasgow from its birth through to adolescence, its industrial booms, its so-called heydays, and subsequent veneration. Glasgow Smiles Better, but would Teneu be smiling?

As the audio work plays, we begin by pulling into the central station, newcomers and visitors, sure-footed, and sure that we will have a good time at the festival. The train draws in and we hear the weather report, familiar accents threaded into our daily sound fabric. TENEU is listening to our utterances, just over our shoulders and under our feet, she reflects our dimmest shadowy parts and shares her view of the events. Speaking through the city's cacophonies, Tenu/Ezeji's voice is confident: 'I birthed this place, this dear green place and I speak to all its corners. I speak to its highs and its lows, and the ones that got away.'

Cass Ezeji's wielding of the work is dynamic. Repeated lines are said in Gaelic for certain refrains in the narration, an interpretation on the text that Ezeji added into the performance – an aspect of the collaborative nature of the project that points to who the work might speak to, but also how we might choose to speak at different moments; the many mother tongues. Ezeji is a Gaelic speaker who works to bring the voices of Black and non-white Gaels to the fore. The drum track in TENEU backdrops Ezeji's performance with cymbal crashes and drum rolls reminiscent of the rumble of the Glasgow subway system that chugs away. Circulating like the gossip that keeps the city flexing. Teneu's knowing tone points to each and every one of us. 'Oh, I know them. / O tha mi eoòlach orra.'

Who are they? The text speaks to many: teenagers, shoppers, workers. TENEU is also alive with the careful attention given to people who build 'place' through caregiving, organisations that emerge from societal rupture and attend to it. What goes undocumented and who goes unnoticed, those who haven't the support and the supporters. Who is going to catch you if you aren't helped by government, city council or neighbour? St Teneu calls for concern, she 'can no longer do this work,' this care work, this mothering.

To listen to the audio work is to go with the beat and yet to try to go against it. As lyrical and playful as the work is, it is pointed at us, it is urgent. It is as pressing as a kick drum that keeps the beat, as arresting as a snare hit hard. The work speaks to those outside the festival and outwith an art scene, we see festivals happen to the city, but you can pass them altogether if it isn't your concern. To spend time with this work to hear its nuances and poignant aspects is important, but equally you can let TENEU wash over you, one of the reasons why it is so worth listening to.

Find TENEU at teneu.radio, including the transcript in both Gaelic and English. Jen Martin worked on the mixing and mastering of the work.