Nika McKagen
Nika McKagen is currently an MFA candidate and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With the awarded film, she will continue working on her project Karst, which documents cave systems in Southwestern Virginia that she and her late father explored when she was a child. This project considers the mythic descent into the subterranean underworld as an allegory for exploration into memory and the subconscious. This work is produced by printing on expired silver gelatin paper from the 60’s-80’s - paper that has been scarred by light over the course of its lifetime, making the imagery that etches into it reflect the dim conditions of the underworld. Karst highlights the thin connective tissue that divides this world from the supernatural world, and examines the obsessive urge to go deep in order to confront grief, desire, the sublime.
