In this Houston appearance, Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen traces the roots of his fascination with magical realism — how visual veracity and the imagination can team up to create something totally unpredictable, believable and brand new.

Minkkinen is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a docent at Aalto University of Art, Design and Architecture in Helsinki, Finland. Exhibited, published and collected worldwide, Minkkinen's reality-based self-portraits in urban and natural landscapes span more than four decades.

A reception to meet the speaker follows the lecture.