Inward: An Evening of Film and Discussion with Artist Michi Meko and Film Director Chad Brown
Portland-based environmental activist, documentarian and nonprofit founder Chad Brown presents a film about Atlanta-based artist Michi Meko, whose life is expressed in multiple layers of mystical meaning. It’s a film experience about journeys, navigation, cartography, and way-finding into the unknown and the uncharted. It’s a narrative about the buoyancy of our souls and survival, about keeping our heavy heads filled with heavy thoughts above water. It’s about his struggle to become oriented to the pitch black and discovering his metaphysical balance. It is about his decision and journey to become an artist.
Michi Meko is a postmodern cartographer and artist who lives within the parallels and meridians of two distinct worlds . . . the urban world and the rural world. Michi is highly influenced by his surrounding urbanization and the disposability of humanity, culture, injustice, and waste. He’s influenced by nature and wilderness and its ability to heal and inspire. His art attempts to answer the questions: What is his place is in this unfamiliar world of nature and wilderness? How does his art define and exhibit a newly fused relationship between his past and a radically new and radiant expression? Meko’s found his place and voice in nature as a fly fisherman and outdoor enthusiast. His journey inspires a new mindset and new possibilities for everyone, and especially African Americans. His journey comes to life in the complex topographical language of his art, which leverages icons and objects of the past while inventing a new iconographic language for the future.
“Being Black in the wilderness is an idea I’ve been trying to chase down or play with for a long time. I wrote a book of field notes and took photographs, and made drawings. A lot of it was trying to hear my own voice and understand what that meant—to hear one’s own voice in wild spaces. What does a Black man sound like in the wilderness, versus the voice of John Muir or Ernest Hemingway? “ —Michi Meko
The event is sponsored by PSU's School of Earth, Environment and Society in collaboration with the Veteran's Resource Center, School of Film, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies’ Mellon grant, Office of the President and Global Diversity and Inclusion.
Event Links
Sponsor: https://go.evvnt.com/2867753-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2867753-2
