Discussion Questions
Soundsuit
Nick Cave
April 2016
Nick Cave, Soundsuit, 2009; collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Nick Cave; photo: James Prinz Photography, courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
- How would you describe this work to someone who can’t see it?
- Imagine wearing this Soundsuit. What sounds do you think it would make? What do you see that makes you say that? How would you move to create the sounds?
- The Soundsuits came into being as a response to what the artist saw as injustices in racial profiling—the demeaning of people based on how they look:
And then I started thinking about the role of identity, being racially profiled, feeling devalued, less than, dismissed. And then I happened to be in the park this one particular day, and looked down at the ground and there was a twig. And I just thought, well, that’s discarded, and sort of insignificant. And so I just started then gathering the twigs, and before I knew it, I had built a sculpture.
How does knowing this change the way you see and understand this work?
