Art for the Wilderness 5: That Instinct to Protect Your Body and Heart
Noticing how you respond to vulnerability
This seven-week series explores what we can learn about navigating the wilderness from artists who engage with difficult experiences through their art.
Hello friend,
This week, we will spend time with an artist who creates (literal) boundaries with his art.
Note: This email mentions police brutality.
These strange and beautiful objects are Soundsuits, wearable sculptures created by the artist Nick Cave. They're made out of all sorts of materials, like beads, metal, human hair, sweaters, sock monkeys, hats, pipe cleaners. They are exciting and disorienting. I recently encountered the Soundsuit pictured on the left in a museum, and it drew me across the gallery with its shiny buttons and sense of drama. But I felt intimidated when I got close; it towered over me with a cavernous opening like the mouth of a Dune sandworm.
This mix of beauty and danger is rooted in the origin of Soundsuits.
Nick Cave was sitting on a bench in Chicago's Grant Park in 1992. It was in the aftermath of the brutal beating of Rodney King, a Black man, by four Los Angeles police officers. The assault had been broadcast on television. Cave was shaken, struggling with the intense vulnerability he felt in his own Black body. He was sitting with a painful question: "How do I exist in a place that sees me as a threat?"
As he sat on that bench, he began to pick up twigs and sticks. Back in his studio, he used them to make a sculpture that eventually became a garment. When he entered this first Soundsuit, it was protective like armor. He felt transformed into something new. The suit felt like the answer to another question he had been holding: "What do I do to protect my spirit in spite of all that’s happening around me?"
Soundsuits offer refuge, where a person's identity and vulnerabilities are masked. Under this additional layer of protection, the wearer guards their personal intimacy while exploring new ways of taking up space.
Sometimes Soundsuits are performed, with live music and energetic choreography. To prepare for these performances, Cave talks with dancers about surrendering their identity inside the suits. The movements and sounds are hypnotizing, and spectators are transported to the realm of the imaginary and mystical. Even though the dancers’ identities are obscured, Soundsuit performances are grounded in the awareness, not denial, of the diversity of our lived experiences. These moments of transcendence shake us out of our despair and complacency; they help us to dream up new ways of living together—and seeing each other—in the face of injustice and suffering.
Nick Cave's artistic practice illustrates our human capacity to meet deadly oppression with an equally immense force of life:
“I just want everything to be fabulous. I want it to be beautiful, even when the subject is hard. Honey, the question is, how do you want to exist in the world, and how are you going to do the work?”
I have two invitations for you this week, inspired by the two postures in a Soundsuit performance: the dancer and the observer. The first centers on how you hold your own vulnerability, and the second suggests a shift in how you listen to others when they share their experiences of vulnerability with you.
We will explore both perspectives because our own identities are intersectional. For example, in my identity as a woman, my body can feel vulnerable. But in my identity as a white woman, my body can be a weapon.
First, notice how you respond to your own vulnerability. (I am not a therapist, so please only do what feels safe, perhaps engaging with something that feels small.) When you feel your guards going up in response to fear or hurt, notice how it feels in your body. Look closely at your instinct to protect the preciousness that is your heart and body; see it as something powerful and vibrant, like a Soundsuit. Honor your fierce self-compassion.
Next, pay attention to how you bear witness to the vulnerability of others, especially in areas where you benefit from privilege that they do not. When someone shares their experience of feeling fear or hurt, whether in a conversation or even on social media, recognize that moment of disclosure as sacred. Honor their fierce self-compassion. And remember that communities have no passive observers. So as you listen, open yourself to be guided and transformed through an honest reflection on your own actions: where you are causing harm, what structures you are benefiting from, and where you can participate in liberation.
The sixth installment of Art for the Wilderness will be sent out next Sunday.
Remember, even in our vulnerability, we are fierce.
Warmly,
KEEP EXPLORING
Read this beautiful profile of Nick Cave to get a real sense of what a joyful and service-oriented person he is. To learn more about Soundsuits, watch this video of a performance, or read this interview.
If you are in NYC, check out these mosaic Soundsuits in the subway.
Check out these books about embodiment and liberation, the concept of intersectionality, practicing fierce self-compassion, and how we carry our defenses in our body.
In the museum world, the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral movement is doing important work to "expose the myth of museum neutrality and demand ethics-based transformation across institutions".