TICKETS $15

Doors 6:30 p.m.; Event 7 p.m.

Click here to learn more about accessibility at the Tomorrow Theater. 

THE EXPERIENCE

Portland-based environmental activist, documentarian, and non-profit founder, Chad Brown presents the Portland premiere of his gorgeous short film Inward about renowned painter and explorer Michi Meko, who will be in attendance for this special screening. A self-described explorer, cartographer, and abstractionist, Michi’s work seeks to capture the wild beauty of nature through the eyes of a “lone black man reporting back from the new world.” There will be a post-film discussion with Chad and Michi moderated by special guest Kalimah Abioto. Tabling from Chad’s non-profit Love is King will be present, as well as a slide show of Michi’s large-scale paintings. 

ON SCREEN: Inward

2023. Directed by Chad Brown. Runtime: 22 minutes. 

This is 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

ON STAGE: Michi Meko & Chad Brown

Michi Meko
My approach to making work first exists within my own exploration of wild spaces. In 2017, I went into the Sierra Nevada mountain range in search of a voice. I was seeking to answer a question: What does a black man’s voice sound like personifying nature? Could I have a transformative moment and become enlightened in a space that has not been so friendly to Black people psychologically? After two weeks, my answer was “NO.” The landscape is marred and mangled with scars of history.

Fast forward to 2020, my pandemic was spent in wild spaces running from my personal anxieties, panic attacks, and an invisible virus. During this time, I decided not to make paintings or perform myself within a digital square for “likes” and thus to say that “I am here.” I vanished. While the world was melting from the fires of political unrest and being ripped apart, I sat in a tent and stood in rivers making new discoveries and writing field notes.

The environment out in the backcountry was a new feeling. The isolation made it feel like I was the only Black Man on Earth. A Black male fugitive on the run, free from all.

In that freedom, its exploration, and the abstract is where and how my studio practice exist. I am an explorer, a cartographer, an abstractionist. A lone Black man reporting back from the new world.

Chad Brown
An award-winning documentary-adventure photographer, filmmaker, and conservationist, Navy veteran Chad Brown is the founder/president of non-profits Soul River, Inc. and Love is King. Chad’s latest efforts include outdoor adventure travel, threatened wild spaces, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. Through his projects, he connects the public to endangered lands, capturing the true essence of their peoples in moments of passion and the indomitable human spirit. Utilizing striking documentary portraits, photographic exhibitions, and film, Chad also advocates for social and environmental justice. 

Kalimah Abioto is a boundary breaking writer, filmmaker, musician and community ecologist specializing in  Afrofuturistic, sci fi and fantasy stories and creations. Their visionary work can be found at www.KalimahAbioto.com

Love Is King

The supportive sponsor, Love is King (LIK), brings BIPOC voices to all communities. LIK was created to be part of the solution, to dismantle hate, bigotry, and racism in the outdoors for Black communities and all historically marginalized groups. LIK works with BIPOC communities to provide conservation leadership training opportunities to give Black community leaders a voice and a platform to share their voice. LIK aims to address the lack of BIPOC representation in advocacy efforts centered around environmental justice issues, and break down barriers to safe, equitable access to nature for BIPOC communities by engaging and building power behind the skills and voices of Black leaders in environmental advocacy for our public lands, wildlife, and Indigenous communities within the conservation sector.