Helping Support Act to raise $800k for music workers doing it tough, the Sophie Howarth / Nick Cave collab for AusMusic T-Shirt Day was one of the top 4 tees in the campaign. 100% of net proceeds from the sale of Sophie's Premium Design going to the Charity.
Excerpts from this article first appeared in The Music, 26 October 2023.
By Sophie Howarth
Looking back over the years, Nick Cave has been the perfect subject to photograph. My one personal encounter with him was outside the Duxton Hotel in Perth, the day after his 2011 Big Day Out show.
Nick Cave holds a special place in my photographic archive. At different times, he was at the Big Day Out, other festivals I covered, and at music venues around the country. Always, he emerges from my photographs present in the moment; stepping out, or allowing us to step in - communicating.
A Nick Cave show is known to have this quality. To me, it is a spiritual quality saying “we are held together, one more time”.
I’ve listened to his music at home; saturating my world with the essence of that spirituality, creating an atmosphere, enhancing what mood exists; the soundtrack to a time that needs this kind of religion. Often one song, over and over again.
It is in the live performance that I reflect upon deeply here; how we can be and are transported into a feeling of otherworldliness - away from our daily life. Within the experience of sound and the theatre of performance, we can and do converge.
Together we allow ourselves to be immersed in feeling - with the singer, the room, the expanse of the festival. In darkness, or sunshine, the mood of the time is represented; the sum of these elements allowing the photograph to live in a dynamic way.
When I was contacted by Support Act in early 2023, I was excited by the offer to create a t-shirt for the Ausmusic T-Shirt Day Premium Range. It’s a favourite initiative of mine, helping those who have fallen on hard times in the Australian music industry; giving me a way to pay homage to the people and industry that have allowed me to create such a rewarding and nourishing career.