We see with our eyes, listen with our ears, smell with our nose and feel with our body. Issue 24 – ”Listen to my Colour & Look at my Sound” is all about understanding spaces and sounds on completely different levels. On a similar level however, we have Nick Cave’s amazing sound suits to awake and satisfy all of your senses.

Our senses are in undeniable relationship with each other and to intensify our experiences we are able to use our senses in less acquainted ways. This is something Nick Cave understood perfectly while creating the remarkable sound suits.

The suits are both stand -alone works of sculpture but are also used in active performance pieces. They cover the whole body, erasing the identity of the wearer. Thus, the soundsuits can be understood as coats of armer, shielding Cave from the day to day prejudice he encounters as an African American man and facilitating a transformation into an invented realm of vibrant associations and meanings. The suits seek us to connect with the environment by becoming vessels of transformation, beg us top pay attention and dream of a different future.

Nick cave:

I think about these as second skins, or a barrier, a space that protects me from the outer world … erasing gender and forcing the viewer to come face-to-face with the unfamiliar.

An absolute delight for the eye, the suits are made of several materials and objects, turning the ordinary in unordinary , like dyed human hair, buttons, beads, recycled materials, sequins, feathers, baskets, iron sticks, twigs old socks and even ceramic bids. Imagine the incredible sound of these entirely different textures striking against and towards each other while wearing it and moving it around in space. It creates a mad, humorous, visionary, glamorous and unexpected effect that shakes up our vision.

 
His solo exhibition – For Now – was an open playground of soundsuits, dancers leaping around exuberantly, a swirl of color and swishing hair… Here’s a short video that gives life to these words…