Snake Lotus (Glasgow)

Nikki Kilburn is a narrative photographer, writer and sound producer interested in capturing stories of identity, her creative practice reflects the lived experience of people and communities that have been historically marginalised. Nikki's work includes being alongside people to tell their stories. Merging this with contextual research she illustrates a collective experience. Through her photographic and audio work, she is exploring themes of rootlessness and the disruption between nature's instinct to survive and being denied the opportunity for justice, and healing.

Snake Lotus

On the understanding we carry an ancestral language of suffering and knowing our daily lives are imposed by systems of patriarch and capitalism experiences of annihilation are normalised. This means aspects of our collective unconscious are a potential battleground between our instinctual nature to survive and our need for safety, nurture, and love. From this background, Nikki engages in a series of shamanic death rituals to deconstruct the survival mode of the ego, shadow and persona. Birthing multi-narrative reflecting archetypal themes within our collective unconscious life, death, and rebirth cycle.

Interested in the marginal experience Nikki’s work reflects the subject of identity, belonging, equality and justice. She weaves a statement of imagery and audio that simultaneously; invites us to reflect on and question our relationship with the social constructs bound within the paradigm of power and the body.