Harn’s Museum Nights features multisensory experience

February 8, 2007

GAINESVILLE, Fla. –– Visitors to the Harn Museum of Art will be introduced to a multisensory film and music experience when filmmaker and professor Salem Mekuria presents “IMAGinING TOBIA” during Museum Nights on Feb. 15. The film screening and lecture begins at 6 p.m.

Mekuria created “IMAGinING TOBIA (2006)” to mark Ethiopia’s third millennium in September 2007. This triptych video installation, on display in the Harn’s Langley Foyer through May 6 in conjunction with the museum’s Ethiopian exhibitions, serves as a mirror to reflect the issues conforming the nation throughout its multifaceted history. Mekuria explores her native land using the camera as a roving eye and contrasts topographic images of the lush southern landscape and the forbiddingly rugged but starkly beautiful north. The film, intended to counter unexamined perceptions of the country, interweaves visual images with text, oral tales, poetry and music.

For a number of years, Mekuria worked with NOVA, a PBS premier science documentary series, and has produced several award-winning films. Besides “IMAGinING TOBIA,” Mekuria has written, directed and produced four other international productions: “Ye Wonz Maibel (Deluge),” “Sidet: Forced Exile,” “As I Remember It” and “Our Place in the Sun.”

Now based in Boston, Mekuria teaches art history and studio courses in film history and video production at Wellesley College. She also remains an active film producer, writer and director.

Museum Nights, sponsored by University of Florida Student Government, keeps the Harn Museum of Art, Camellia Court Café and Florida Museum of Natural History open until 10 p.m. on Thursdays during the University of Florida academic year.

This film screening and lecture is presented by the Harn Eminent Scholar Endowment.

For more information on Harn Museum programs and events, visit the Web at www.harn.ufl.edu or call 352-392-9826.