At first glance, this photograph by Lori Nix appears to capture a serene pond. Closer inspection reveals a more complex story: a human body floats in the water among the cattails. The inspiration for this photograph came from Nix’s time working on a riverboat that carried tourists up and down the Missouri River. She recalls looking over the boat’s edge to see interesting things floating past. One day after a flood in Iowa, Nix witnessed something different than the typical trees, tires, and trash…she saw a bloated dead pig.

A common theme in Nix’s photography is catastrophe. Having grown up watching disaster movies and cartoons, Nix creates images that appear like film stills set in the rural Kansas and Missouri landscapes of her youth. Rather than finding the perfect scene to photograph, Nix creates them herself in miniature. With help from photographer Kathleen Gerber, she built the scene captured in Floater using common materials like paper towels, polymer clay, cardboard, and dill purchased at the grocery store.

-Linnea Seidling, Assistant Curator of Glass