Department of Art + Design | College of Arts and Letters
The University of Tampa

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, March 9, 2026

Tampa, FL – The Department of Art + Design at the University of Tampa is pleased to announce that Mabel Poblet Pujol (b. 1986; Cienfuegos, Cuba), a mixed- and multi-media artist based in Madrid and Havana, will join the department as the 2026 Meridian Scholar in Residence from April 6 to 17, 2026.

During the two-week residency, Poblet Pujol, renowned for her immersive reinterpretations of pop and kinetic art, will engage UTampa students, faculty, and the Tampa Bay community in her new and collaborative project, Fragments of Memory. This work, composed of mirrored surfaces as well as light projections sourced from participants’ photographs, videos, and actions, imagines a “suspended territory where the intimate and the collective meet.”

In addition to producing this immersive, site-specific work with the UTampa Art + Design community, the artist’s tenure will include various programming. We invite the public to join us for a public artist lecture by Poblet Pujol, scheduled for 12:30-1:30pm on Tuesday, April 7th, in the Charlene and Mardy Gordon Performance Gallery in the Ferman Center for the Arts. In addition, we invite the public to celebrate the completion of this project and an accompanying exhibition of select works by the artist with an opening reception in the 2nd floor gallery of the Ferman Center for the Arts, on April 17th, from 2-4pm. These events are free and open to the public without advanced registration.

The Meridian Scholar Program (formerly STUDIO-f; founded in 1990) is an innovative program designed to host nationally and internationally recognized artists, designers, creative practitioners, and researchers for a 10-day residency with the University of Tampa’s Art + Design Department. Previous artists in residence have included Sam Gilliam, Joyce J. Scott, Roberto Juarez, Miriam Schapiro, Audrey Flack, Pedro Perez, Ed Paschke, Willy Heeks, John Walker, Tom Lieber, Larry Poons, Sam Messer, James McGarrell, Robert Rahway Zakanitch, Stephen Greene, Katherine Porter, Hollis Sigler, Vitaly Komar, Alexander Melamid and Louisa Chase.

Please follow the University of Tampa’s Art + Design Department on social media (@utampaartdept) for updates on news and events. For questions regarding the Meridian Scholar Program, please email Exhibitions and Art Programs Coordinator Lesley Wolff (lwolff@ut.edu).