ABSTRACT
An Inclusive World: Bridging Communities, the 2015 United States Society for Education through Art (USSEA) conference in Queens, New York, seemed an optimum space in which to explore the work of Nick Cave, whose spectacles and installations create opportunities for interactions across populations and explorations of varied readings of the world. As my talk at the Queens Art Museum unfolded, Cave was in Detroit working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ2) students at the Ruth Ellis Center. That site-specific performance was one of six mounted across Detroit in 2015, each integrally aligned with Here Hear (2015), his exhibit mounted at the Cranbrook Museum of Art. Cave’s site-specific performances called attention to populations and challenges rarely recognized by news media preoccupied with Detroit’s urban decay, its economic woes, and crumbling infrastructure. Cave’s work, committed to inspired dreaming and reframing public valuations of Black lives, staged spectacular productions that called attention to the possibilities of reconstructing more inclusive communities and valuing all communities’ cultural contributions. This essay discusses a few of Cave’s projects in order to trace how the artist orchestrates opportunities for shared wonder and imaginings that bridge interests of citizens and work toward building inclusivity.
