Community Conversations and Racial Justice Through Art – With Nick Cave and Bob Faust

In today’s episode, I’ll be talking with Nick Cave and Bob Faust, two very well-known artists, art entrepreneurs, and social innovators based in Chicago. Nick and Bob use their art and their platform to advance racial justice and as a way to create and co-create community conversations. One of their installations, Making #AMENDS: Letters to the World Toward the Eradication of Racism, was the spark for our discussion. Full Transcript HereLearn more about MAKING #AMENDS: LETTERS TO THE WORLD TOWARD THE ERADICATION OF RACISMLearn about Nick's career retrospective at the MCA Chicago. Nick Cave: Forothermore Related episodes:Design Matters with Debbie Millman, Interview with Nick Cave and Bob FaustInclusion in Art - with Suzanne ThomasBuilding Community Equity Through Art - with Monique Davis Guest Bios:Bob FaustDescribed as "part artist, part designer and part mediator,” Bob Faust is the principal and creative director for Faust, a Chicago-based art and design studio focused on cultural articulation. He is also the partner and design collaborator of artist Nick Cave, who together founded the dynamic, multi-use creative space called Facility. As an entity, it believes that art and design can create peace, build power, and change the world ... that by fostering an environment and community built from your dreams you will wake up daily within your destiny. NewCity magazine honored Faust as "Best Breakthrough Design Artist" in 2017 and followed up in 2020 naming he and partner Nick Cave "Designers of the Moment." He has also been recognized as a design leader nationally and internationally by publications and institutions such as Communication Arts, NBC5 Chicago, the Society of Typographic Arts and Under Consideration. Faust also serves on the Cultural Advisory Council for the City of Chicago, as well as Chicago Dancemakers Forum Board of Directors and the School of the Art Institute’s Fashion Council.Nick CaveNick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, MO; lives and works in Chicago, IL) is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that represent both brutality and empowerment.Throughout his practice, Cave has created spaces of memorial through combining found historical objects with contemporary dialogues on gun violence and death, underscoring the anxiety of severe trauma brought on by catastrophic loss. The figure remains central as Cave casts his own body in bronze, an extension of the performative work so critical to his oeuvre. Cave reminds us, however, that while there may be despair, there remains space for hope and renewal. From dismembered body parts stem delicate metal flowers, affirming the potentia