nika mckagen

Caves + forests are ancient not only in terms of shelter but also of story: in many mythos, the antechamber to the underworld presents itself either in a cave or deep in the forest. These spaces demolish the thin connective tissue dividing the natural world from the supernatural world. Intentional exploration of the subterranean world unavoidably creates allegories into the subconscious. It’s all depth. Veils thin and potentials for magic appear, letting us get closer to desire, grief, pain and the sublime. It’s easy to get obsessed with going downstairs.

Working in the darkroom is an emulation of being inside a cave - it’s dark, wet, reddened, erupting with tactile and auditory sensations, and tends to produce some kind of holy imagery. This work is produced by printing on different sizes and types of expired silver gelatin paper from the 70’s-80’s. The paper 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.

This project (in-progress) documents the caves of Southwestern Virginia, in the Appalachian mountains - caves that my father mapped out when I was a child. He took me with him all the time + so the underground space was stored as a musty chamber inside of me. Twenty-some years after he died, my brother and I went back crawling around underground and when we were there, we ran into cavers that knew my dad, who remembered us. Being in the belly of the earth is magical, terrifying, reverent, + reminds me of the holy feelings of searching for desire, for god, or for the other side. This area of Virginia contains 10% of the US’s known caves. More opportunities to go deep. Something big. Small world. Always right underneath us.