The Nonfiction Writing Fellowship, now in its eighth year, was created in partnership with the University of Iowa to support the professional development of one student in the Writers’ Workshop each year by providing close access to The Englert’s arts programming and resources. Thank you to MidwestOne for their ongoing support of our educational programming.
Introducing Nikka Singh
Nikka is from California’s Inland Empire (which is not even near a beach) and now rents a condo in Coralville. He’spublished and produced writing, podcasts, posters and death metal albums; no celebrities or commentators have ever praised his work, but Glenn Beck did generously slander him saying his visual art was part of a “communist plot to overthrow America.”
Nowadays he is a graduate student in the Nonfiction Writing Program, at the University of Iowa, and a frequent participant in all things PS1. His current work centersaround his family, and uses a maximalist approach incorporating braids of text and images. The images are often drawings, and unlike traditionally illustrated books, the visuals are supposed to complicate narrative threads, be inconclusive, and add anonymity. Another way to put it is the image should connote an idea/event while being enough of a Rorschach that the viewer will have their own vision, rather than something narrow, prescribed, or representational. But don’t hold him to any of this, he’s still in uni’, and he’s still working it out. However, one thing he is certain about is not having the light on in two rooms simultaneously, especially if they are on separate floors, as he once had an old neighbor who repeatedly, at all times of the night, would call and shame him for this “waste of precious energy,” that man wasfour-time presidential candidate, Ralph Nader.
