- Nabil Harb uses photography to capture the changing cultural, political and environmental atmosphere of his hometown of Lakeland, Florida.

We traveled to Lakeland to get a glimpse of his latest body of work created for an exhibition titled Atmospheres at the South Florida State College Museum of Florida Art and Culture.

- I always like to joke that half the reason our photographer is because I'm nosy and I like to get into things and I am always curious like, what's going on in that building?

What's going on in this part of town?

I may not have an aim.

There's maybe not something I specifically want from these places other than to see what's going on and I found that having a camera is a really great excuse.

I like living in Lakeland because I'm from here originally.

I was born and raised here, but I've always made my work here, my photographic work.

I have a lot of connections in this area that allow my work to be possible.

That's a really important part of my practices, access to places, for instance, going to orange groves or old jails that are no longer in use, kind of like old parks and places that sort of have this historical tie to it that I'm really interested in checking out.

Atmospheres is a new body of work that I've created.

There's a lot of thinking of movement in history, movement whether it's the movement of water, the movement of people and cars like through highways and thinking a lot about the relationship between the infrastructure and the water, because that's a big part of Florida for me and something I've really thought about a lot is how can I let the environment of Florida into my work - In Nabil's work, we're seeing his memories and his personal history layered on top of all these different places in Lakeland and we're seeing local history, local culture, but he's also packing in a ton of sensory information into his images as well.

You really feel like you're in these heavy muggy Florida environments when you're looking at his pictures.

You're not just seeing the trees, you're seeing all of the atmosphere.

You're seeing all of the particles and all the bugs and all the moisture in the air, and you can feel the humidity and all the activity and density and material that's there in that atmosphere that we're moving through, you know, day to day.

- Whirlpool is yet another I think example of the personal, political, historical layers that exist just in any of my pictures and this one in particular was an image of a tiny whirlpool that's kind of occurring right in this like hotspot of the sun's reflection in the Peace River.

And the Peace River is a historically relevant area and like water feature in Lakeland, it's a place that historically has been a dividing line.

When the settlers first arrived to this part of Florida, it was a place where the indigenous people were pushed up against originally, and then eventually were sort of kicked to the other side of the Peace River.

So, it's been historically used as this border.

It's also a place where a lot of racialized violence had occurred.

Picturing this little like portal opening up in this river, I just can't help but think to myself like, what's coming through, when this river and this water knows so much or have been a site for so many things, the awareness of all these like geographical features and how they touch one another.

Because for me it's like the Peace River connects to Saddle Creek.

Saddle Creek is right next to Main Street.

Main Street is the street that the gay club is at the parrot.

And so I can't help but think about all of those things interacting with one another and all the time that's sort of flattened by my exploration of that area.

And in thinking about all of these things at once, right?

A gay club, a gay cruising ground, a fossil hunting in racial violence, like what do all those things have in common?

The Peace River for some reason.

With Lakeland, it's growing so much especially during the pandemic, which I think everyone in Florida can sort of, like, notice that people moved in in droves.

For me, I'm like, okay, but what's lost because of that, right?

We have so many new coffee shops and so many new bars and restaurants in Lakeland that are really cool and like, I like to eat there and I like to hang out there, but it's also like, all right, but what else?

What used to be here?

Why are we not, why is no one curious about that?

And so we're witnessing this really intense like turnover of culture and industry and identity in this place that I think is really sad.

I don't love it.

I think those of us, you know, who have always been here maybe aren't being as served by some of this turnover as everyone else.

You know and especially those of us who are from like suburban rural less "culturally relevant places."

I think it's really important for a lot of us to think back on where we're from because an outsider coming in can make all these assumptions.

I'm like, why don't those of us who know what we're doing in these places speak on it?

- I think Nabil's work shows that even if you live in a small town or in an isolated location, you might feel like there's not a lot going on, but there is a lot going on wherever you are if you look for it.

- If you look at your hometown with these eyes that other people who aren't from this place don't have for this area, you can see things that other people won't.

And so I would hope that maybe a larger theme of this work is for people to think about where they're from and think about the history and the magic of that.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] To learn more about Nabil Harb and his exhibition atmospheres, visit mofac.org.