Inward

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, keeping our heavy heads filled with heavy thoughts above water. It’s about his struggle to become orientated in the pitch black and discover his metaphysical balance. It is about his decision and the 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 question – What is his place in this unfamiliar world of nature and wilderness, and how does his art define and exhibit a newly fused relationship between his past and a radically new and radiant expression? – Michi found his place and voice in nature as a fly fisherman and outdoor enthusiast. Michi Meko’s journey inspires a new mindset and possibilities for everyone, especially African Americans. Michi's journey comes to life in a complex topographical language of his art that 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 field notes book, took photographs, and made drawings. A lot of it was trying to hear my voice and understand what that meant—to listen to one’s voice in wild spaces. What does a Black man sound like in the wilderness versus the voice of John Muir or Ernest Hemingway?