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Nick Cave:
This place of dreaming within my work

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really is the place that I find 
that I exist in most of the time.

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You know, it's just this sort 
of amazing state of mind.

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It is about dreaming for the audience,

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but I've got to be able to 
set up those parameters.

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What do I need to sort of put 
in place to allow you to dream?

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[synth music]

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[camera clicks]

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I'm based in Chicago.

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For me, it's an amazing place 
to be because I can focus,

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I can have the type of studio that I need,

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I can introduce a new project here.

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And there is a network of people that I know here 
that can help sort of inform and build my work.

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So it really becomes this interesting 
sort of laboratory for me.

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[spectators oohing]

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The first Soundsuit was in '92 in response 
to the Rodney King incident, the L.A. riots.

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I was sitting in the park one day 
and just sort of thinking about,

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What does it feel like to be 
discarded, dismissed, profiled?

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There was this twig on the ground.

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And I looked at that twig as something discarded.

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And then I proceeded to just start 
collecting the twigs in the park.

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And I brought them all back to the studio.

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And then I started to build this sculpture.

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[indistinct conversations]

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I started to realize that the moment I 
started to move in it, it made sound.

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Then it just literally put 
everything in perspective.

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I was building this suit of armor,

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something that I could shield 
myself from the world and society.

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And so out of that came this 
sculpture-performative kind of work.

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I think after the first Soundsuit,

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I had a different approach to art making.

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And I realized that I was 
an artist with a conscience.

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The moment I did was the moment that 
my life literally turned upside-down.

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[energetic pulsing music]

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I think it's just me kind of experimenting.

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It's like, you know, a scientist 
exploring alternative ideas.

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— How's it look?
— Awesome.

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— Oh, my God. It looks amazing.

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[Nick Cave] I wanted to be not necessarily 
something that is defined.

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You know, like with the Soundsuit, 
I don't draw any of them.

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— If that's areas that are,
like, bad, like,

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put a yellow pin.

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— OK.

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[Nick Cave] I work hard, but I'm one single individual.

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It was just too much. And so I had 
to hire 3 full-time assistants.

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[violin music]

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Now there's, you know, 10 studio assistants 
that are regular full-time assistants.

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They're all artists, which is great.

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— I got just the end left.

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So just, you know, maybe 2 1/2
square feet.

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So that's about 2 days.

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Should be done, you know,
Thursday, I think.

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[Nick Cave] If I'm coming up with a new 
concept for a Soundsuit,

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I tend to always do the first one myself.

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It's very meditative for me. 
I can do it for hours on end.

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— I just need a little bit more.

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[Nick Cave] It's all really based on one 
object that becomes the instigator.

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That's how a Soundsuit is built.

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It's built on me sort of identifying an object 
and then me taking that object and relocating it

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on and around the body.

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And then that begins this sort of journey.

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[cars driving]

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— We need metal flowers.

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— A lot of metal flowers.

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[Nick Cave] We just did a road trip looking for materials for 
the body of work that I'm working on currently.

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— Let's go back here.

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Look at all this silver.

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I need to start collecting
that.

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[Nick Cave] I find that when it comes to 
looking for supplies for my work,

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I'm at the flea markets, the antique malls

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looking for something that 
may spark a new direction.

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— There's a lot of ducks.

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— No ducks.

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— No ducks.

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[Nick Cave] I don't have a list ever.

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I may not know how I'm going 
to use it right at the moment.

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But it all eventually sort of comes back 
around and enters the work at some point.

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I'm finding that I'm building work 
as we're antiquing right on the spot.

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I may build an entire piece 
because I will find "x" here.

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And then I'll say, OK, I need 
to find this to go with "x."

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[strumming music]

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All of this kind of stuff is nostalgic. It is 
this place that we want to sort of remember.

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♪ ♪

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One day I just started buying these ceramic birds.

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But, you know, I bought them 
because in my upbringing,

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that was what was considered precious art.

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You know, it was kept in the china cabinet.

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And that was my way of staying connected to 
my grandparents as they were getting older.

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And it was my way of honoring 
and sort of celebrating how

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they influenced my upbringing and my life.

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♪ ♪

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So a part of the work is really about this 
sense of honor in the celebratory kind of way

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that the Soundsuits are fantastic, fantastical.

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♪ ♪

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I'm very much interested in being able to create 
these concepts that I can immerse myself in.

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Cranbrook Art Museum really became 
the core of this immersive experience.

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From that core were these satellite experiences 
that were built around performance activity.

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[Choreographer]...as you're
doing this, don't forget,

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more trotting, more
personality,

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more character. Yeah!

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More energy, more energy, more
energy.

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There can never be enough
energy...

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[Nick Cave] One of the performances at Cranbrook was 
really working with the Detroit School of Arts,

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which is a public high school.

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I think dance has always been a 
real critical part of my practice.

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[energetic music]

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The Soundsuits are really 
broken up into 2 bodies of work.

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One is sculpture work.

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Uh, and that's sort of the
static work that, you know, you see in the museums.

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And then there's this sort 
of performance, uh, Soundsuits.

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[drum music]

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[cheering]

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When producing a project of that scale--

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all of these components and parts and elements--

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they're all--it's like building
a collage.

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[drumming]

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I think by the end of the project,

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probably over 500 people were involved 
in some aspect of the performance.

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That's what we were interested 
in making happen in Detroit.

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How do we get people out of their 
communities and engaged with the arts?

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[clapping]

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"Trayvon Martin" is a new work 
that was shown at Cranbrook.

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It's made up of a Black mannequin dressed 
in a hoodie and sneakers and jeans.

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And then surrounding its body 
is these plastic blow molds.

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Which are, like, sometimes at Halloween,

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there are these plastic forms 
that are set out in yards.

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And so they are surrounding this 
sort of figure almost as guardians.

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But then over top of the entire structure is 
this web that's constructed out of pony beads.

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So from a distance,

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it looks like this amazing sort of gold 
sculptural form until you get up close

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and you realize that there 
is someone trapped inside.

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[synth music]

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It's very, very disturbing

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what's going on right now politically 
within the Black community,

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not only Chicago but around the country 
what's going on with police brutality

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and these unarmed Black men that are being killed.

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I mean, it just goes on and on.

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You know, I think at the end of the day,

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it's me giving back to the community 
and being this sort of change agent.

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I want to change our way of 
engaging with one another.

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I want to use art as a form of diplomacy.

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That's why I'm in this state of urgency right now.

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And I don't know.

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I just feel so unsettled.

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I'm doing what I'm doing,

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but I'm not sure if it's happening fast enough.

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♪ ♪

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[soft electronic music]