Light Work’s Urban Video Project will present the exhibition “Lines of Flight” featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles.

Light Work’s Urban Video Project will present the exhibition “Lines of Flight” featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles. The exhibition explores the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run from Feb. 27-May 24, 2025, as an architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade.

Additional work by Joiri Minaya will be on view at the 黑料不打烊 Museum in the show “” through May 10, 2025.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Minaya and Charles will be present for a screening and Q&A on?Thursday, March 20, at 6:30 p.m. in Watson Theater across from Light Work’s? galleries.

“Labadee”
Joiri Minaya

“Labadee” is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we’re seeing.

It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus’ Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization.

“Fly, Fly Sadness”
Miryam Charles?

In this film, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A? journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed.

About the Artists

is a Dominican-U.S. multidisciplinary artist whose recent works focus on destabilizing historic and contemporary representations of an imagined tropical identity. Minaya attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales in Santo Domingo (2009), Altos de Chavón School of Design (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013). She has participated in esteemed residency programs such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Smack Mellon, NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, Vermont Studio Center, and Fountainhead. She has received numerous awards, fellowships and grants, including NYSCA/NYFA, Jerome Hill, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, amongst other organizations.

is a Haitian-Canadian director, producer and cinematographer living in Montreal. She has produced several short and feature films. Her films have been presented in various festivals internationally. Her first feature film, “Cette Maison” (This House), was presented at the Berlinale, the AFI film festival and was included in the TIFF Top 10 of the year. Several of her short films and her feature are available to stream on the Criterion Channel. Her work explores themes related to exile and the legacies of colonization.

Lake Hancock, Nabil Harb, 2024

“Mater si, magistra no,” (a macaronic phrase that translates as “Mother yes, teacher no”) presents a series of black-and-white photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within Harb’s hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, Florida. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb’s visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography’s formal language into a conceptual idea—an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words.

“The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index—it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures and our hopes for the future,” Harb says.

Harb uses his camera to look rather than gaze at wily scenes and moving bodies; his images disturb the before and after of a photograph by showing a moment extended or an instant flashed with a strobe. The narratives in this work are conflicting and intermingle with one another. The overriding story is one of man versus nature, of beauty and destruction coexisting in an atmosphere that is surreal, seductive and breathtaking. Where the conflicting notions of destruction and rebirth intersect is also the point at which Harb’s formalism and conceptual photographic practice meet, showing us the potential for beauty in destruction and foreboding rebirth.

Harb is a Palestinian American photographer born and raised in Polk County, Florida, where he still lives. Harb received his in? bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida and his master of fine arts degree in photography from Yale University. His work has been featured in Aperture, The Atlantic, ArtReview, The Guardian and A24.

2025 B.F.A. Art Photography Annual

Light Work is also presenting the 2025 B.F.A. Art Photography Annual. This exhibition features work
by seniors from the Art Photography program in the Film and Media Arts Department at the
College of Visual and Performing Arts at 黑料不打烊. The exhibiting artists are Maxine
Brackbill, Charles Lavion, Kelsey Quinn Leary, Lili Moreno Martel, Shawn McCauley and Hazel
Wagner.

Each spring, seniors in the art photography program have the opportunity to exhibit a selection
of images from their senior thesis projects at Light Work. The senior thesis is a yearlong,
in-depth photographic exploration of a subject chosen by each student. The subjects of these
projects are wide-ranging, from very personal explorations of family and selfhood to sharp and
humorous experiments playing with the boundaries of fashion and studio photography. Students
choose, edit and print the images in collaboration and with the assistance of Light Work’s
curatorial staff and master printers.

“The B.F.A. Art Photography Annual is not only the first exhibition for many of the students in the Art Photography program, but also an important learning opportunity for them,” says Laura Heyman, associate professor of art photography. “In addition to giving students the space to imagine how the
images they create might exist beyond the walls of the university, the Art Photography Annual
introduces their work to their peers, the local community, and the renowned curators and critics.”
who jury the exhibition.”

Bruno Ceschel, founder of Self Publish Be Happy,? served as juror and selected Brackbill’s images for Best in Show.

“Maxine Brackbill’s photographs address identity through lenses of gender, race and familial contexts, presenting biographies that are deeply personal yet universally relevant. These narratives emerge at a time when there is a growing visibility for diverse perspectives, but also an environment that feels increasingly hostile,” says Ceschel. “One particularly striking image of Maxine standing in water, confronting the viewer with a gaze that asserts her new body and new life, feels both vulnerable and defiant.”

An opening reception will take place in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work on Jan. 23 from 5 to 7 p.m.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Sachs will be joined by members of the feminist filmmaking
group The Abortion Clinic Film Collective and local reproductive justice advocates for
“Communities of Care: Documenting Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Country,” a film
screening and panel talk at Light Work (316 Waverly Ave., on the SU campus) on Thursday,
Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m.

About “This Side of Salina”

Four Black women from 黑料不打烊, New York, reflect on sexuality, youthful regret, emotional vulnerability, raising a daughter and working in reproductive health services. In a series of their own choreographed vignettes, each woman thoughtfully engages with the neighborhoods she’s known all of her life. Two performers flip through classic 1960s titles by Black authors in a bookstore. Others sit in a hat store finding time to pour into each other, as mentors and confidantes. These are businesses that are owned by local Black women, and they know it. In Brady Market, a community grocery, they playfully shop and chat with ease and confidence. They dance to their own rhythms in the outdoor plaza of the Everson Museum of Art. Together they look down at the city from its highest point and ponder how to battle the inequities of the place that they call home.

Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn, New York.
Working from a feminist perspective, she has created cinematic works that defy genre through
the use of hybrid forms, incorporating elements of documentary, performance and collage into
self-reflexive explorations of broader historical experience. Her films have screened at the
Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Wexner Center for the Arts, and festivals such as New
York Film Festival, Oberhausen Int’l Short Film Festival, Punto de Vista, Sundance, Viennale
and Doclisboa. Retrospectives of her work have been presented at Museum of the Moving
Image, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Cork Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, among others. In 2021,
both Edison Film Festival and Prismatic Ground Film Festival at the Maysles Documentary
Center gave her awards for her lifetime achievements in the experimental and documentary
fields. In 2014, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts. In 2019, Tender
Buttons Press published her first book of poetry, “Year by Year Poems.”

Related Programming

All programs are free and open to the public.

“Living to Tell: Using Filmmaking as a Tool for Reproductive Justice”
Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5:30 p.m.
Salt City Market Community Room, 484 S. Salina St.
484 S. Salina St.
Free,

“Communities of Care: Documenting Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Country”
Thursday, Oct. 17,? 5:30 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Theater, 316 Waverly Ave.

Communities of Care is sponsored by the 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center as part of
黑料不打烊 Symposium 2024-25: Community and by the Lender Center for Social Justice.
at 黑料不打烊. This program is also partnered with the Department of Women’s and
Gender Studies and the CODE^SHIFT lab in the Newhouse School, both at 黑料不打烊
University.

Living to Tell is co-presented with Engaged Humanities Network, an engaged scholarship
initiative of 黑料不打烊.

Under the new banner Arts at 黑料不打烊, are top-notch museums and galleries, active maker spaces, robust community centers and a myriad of creative events and programs.

The new name is part of a rebranding and profile-boosting effort to highlight the University’s arts offerings and strengthen and grow awareness of its diverse group of centers and programs, says , assistant provost for arts and community programming.

The initiative includes the , which comprehensively illustrates the range of arts centers and programming available to students, faculty, staff and community members. The site also includes a dedicated that highlights events, ongoing programs and exhibitions.

Spaces and programs include , , , , , , at 黑料不打烊 Libraries, , the , 黑料不打烊 Artist-in-Residence Program and the in New York City.

Outdoor visual displays are conducted at the Urban Video Project.

New ideas about how academic and community arts programming and experiences are presented to a range of constituencies—students, faculty, staff and the general public—and as part of student experiential learning, teaching activities and individual entertainment and enjoyment resulted from a year-long planning process spearheaded by the , Traudt says.

Miranda Traudt

“This is much more than a name change. It’s a true rethinking of the arts at 黑料不打烊,” she says. “We purposefully considered how all the individual units and centers that are doing such fantastic work on their own could band together to have greater overall impact and visibility and to create wider local, regional, national and international awareness of these exceptional offerings.”

In addition to enhancing the visibility of the separate arts programs and centers, Arts at 黑料不打烊 highlights how, grouped together, the units offer distinctive experiential learning opportunities for students that are typically available only at much larger national and international venues, Traudt says.

黑料不打烊 Stage puts students and their artistic presentations at the center of downtown 黑料不打烊 and hosts theater offerings that are enjoyed by all of Central New York.

“The 黑料不打烊 Art Museum has one of the largest university-owned art collections in the country. La Casita, as a vital part of the 黑料不打烊 Near West Side community, is the only Latin cultural center in this part of New York state. The Community Folk Art Center is a vibrant seat of community programming for people of all ages. Light Work’s renowned Artist-in-Residence Program has hosted more than 400 artists coming from every U.S. state and 15-plus countries. Urban Video Project is an important international venue for the public presentation of video and electronic arts and one of the few projects in the U.S. dedicated to continuous and ongoing video art projections. Exhibitions of nationally and internationally known artists hosted here mean you don’t have to travel to New York City to see that kind of artistic excellence.”

Elisa Dekaney

Elisa Dekaney, associate provost for strategic initiatives, makes this comparison. “We pride ourselves on the fact that the University’s study-abroad programs utilize their locations as classrooms. We say, ‘Florence is our classroom; London is our classroom’ because of what these cities offer in the arts and cultural experiences. But we can also say ‘黑料不打烊 is our classroom’ because of the rich arts programming the University offers right here.”

Other goals defined in the strategic operating plan include serving as an international model of arts and humanities engagement for institutions of higher education; expanding community partnerships; growing reciprocal relationships with local, regional, national and international arts and strategic partners; increasing faculty, alumni and donor engagement with the arts programs and centers.

Nicholas Mueller, “Untitled, Marseille,” 2022. Courtesy of the artist

In this exhibition, Muellner offers up photographs depicting people pantomiming in a verdant landscape made complex with surreal lighting; these images are paired with an issue of Contact Sheet that serves as a guidebook to the exhibition. The text in Contact Sheet is wryly poetic and succinct, and loosely leads us from picture to picture. “Asea” takes us somewhere without making its destination specific, setting a tone and mood that guides our desire for meaning but refuses to precisely locate it.

The exhibition conveys a type of suspended drama via an installation that divides the gallery into two rooms, creating an atmosphere in which viewers float, both in space and time. The majority of the portraits are of people connected to the maritime economy and all of the photographs were made in a landscape or setting that the subjects live in: Marseille, Odesa, Milan, Long Beach. The subjects gesture toward the camera, holding the invisible tools of their respective trades, and suggesting an estrangement from their concrete identities.

With “Asea,” Muellner projects a state of limbo and a search for personal meaning within photography’s inevitable narrative limits. We are asked to ponder alone, in a subjective state that is not fixed but which hovers within the parameters established by the photographs and text. Ultimately, we engage with “Asea” because it is at once thoughtful, beautiful and curious.

Artist Bio

Muellner is an artist and writer whose books include “Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography,” “The Amnesia Pavilions” and “In Most Tides an Island,” which was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Award and named a Best Book of the Year in Artforum. In addition to solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, his writing has been published by MACK/SPBH, Aperture, Radius, Triple Canopy, Foam, and Routledge, among others. Muellner has performed slide lectures internationally, including at MoMA PS1, Carnegie Museum, The Photographers’ Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, a John Gutmann Fellowship and residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. Muellner received a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. from Temple University. He is the founding co-director of the Image Text MFA and ITI Press at Cornell University.

In conjunction with the exhibition, artist Paulina Velázquez Solís will be present for a live performance on the Everson Plaza on July 26 at 8:30 p.m.

About the Exhibition

“Unseen/forgotten: An ode to the humble landscape” is the continuation of a project Velázquez Solís developed during the pandemic. She found herself in a new environment in Brooktondale, New York, surrounded by a creek where the change of pace and isolation brought via COVID accentuated the sound perception of the river, and its presence as a neighbor and living entity.

This sonic connection was similar to her home in Costa Rica, which is also next to a river, making the sound and the experience of the river both grounding and nostalgic. This project, which includes interactive and performance-based elements, explores Central New York as a site of “post-industrial natural wonder,” using regionally extinct species in local herbaria as tools to meditate on “the tension between what prevails and what has shifted or disappeared” in a field of “memory, transformation and territory.”

Paulina Velázquez Solís, “Unseen/forgotten” installation view, 2024 (Photo courtesy of Light Work)

About the Artist

(she/her) is a multimedia artist from Latinoamerica with an interest in the oddities hidden within nature and the body. She was born in Puebla, Mexico, and grew up between Mexico and Costa Rica, where she went to art school. She works in diverse mediums, including installation, sculpture, drawing, animation and multimedia performance.

She graduated with a degree in art and visual communication in printmaking at Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica and obtained an M.F.A. in new genres from the San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright Scholar. She moved to Ithaca, New York, in 2018 and is currently a faculty member in the art department at Cornell University and Ithaca College.

Her work has been shown around the world, including at the Museo de Arte y Dise?o Contemporáneo and TEOR/éTica in Costa Rica, Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in México City, Museo de Arte in San Salvador, Torino Contemporanea in Italy, La Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, Mengi in Reykjavik, Iceland, Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., UCLA Biennial in Los ?ngeles and the Berkeley Art Museum in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To request high-resolution images for press reproduction and interviews, contact Cali Banks, Light Work communications coordinator, at cali@lightwork.org.

UVP programs are made possible by a Tier Three Project Support grant from the County of Onondaga, with the support of County Executive Ryan McMahon and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts. All Light Work programs are made possible by the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

“According to the Laws of Chance” is a group exhibition showcasing 11 artists whose work embraces chance as a core element of their image-making. The photographers in this exhibition embrace the unpredictable and find ways to amplify chance to suit their own conceptual and creative needs.

Jaclyn Wright, “Blaze Pink,” I, 2023

The artists in this exhibition are Cheryl Miller, Claire A. Warden, Jaclyn Wright, Josh Thorson, Kyle Tata, Louis Chavez and Will Stith, and Light Work’s collection artists Cecil McDonald, Jr., James Welling, Peter Finnemore and Rita Hammond.

An opening reception will take place in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work on July 26 from 5-7 p.m.

About “According to the Laws of Chance”

Chance is a core tenet of photography. The image-makers in this exhibition embrace the unpredictable and find ways to amplify chance for conceptual and creative purposes. These artists interpret chance via darkroom and analog experimentation, conceptually driven exploration, daily image-making and studio-based arranging. The results of these methods are surprising expressions of each artist’s voice. Together they showcase the wide-ranging use of chance and highlight it as a vital tool in contemporary photographic practice.

2024 Light Work Grants in Photography

Light Work announces an exhibition featuring works of the winners of? the . The 2024 award recipients are Malik Abdoulmoumine, Rosely Htoo and Kari Varner. The two runner-ups are Alex Cassetti and Ian Sherlock Molloy.

Kari Varner, “Monett & Sedalia,” 2022

The exhibition will be on display through Aug. 16 in Light Work’s Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery. An opening reception will take place July 26 from 5-7 p.m.

The grants are part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography within a 50-mile radius of 黑料不打烊.

Established in 1975, the Light Work Grants program is one of the longest-running photography fellowships in the country. Each recipient receives a $3,000 stipend and appears in Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual. This year’s judges were Sydney Ellison, Lacey McKinney and Darin Mickey.

General Information

Light Work’s galleries are located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊. Summer gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Light Work closes on all major holidays. Contact Light Work to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab. Follow Light Work on Facebook and Instagram. For general information, please visit www.lightwork.org, call 315.443.1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Parking Information

Paid parking is available in the Comstock Avenue Garage at the intersection of Comstock and Waverly Avenues, diagonally across the street from Light Work. There is also metered parking in front of? Bird Library, on Walnut Avenue and on Comstock Avenue across from the Comstock Avenue Garage. Visit parking.syr.edu for more information on parking and directions to the galleries.

Dawoud Bey’s “Clothes Drying on the Line.” (Photo courtesy of Dawoud Bey)

Black-and-white images from “An American Project,” made in 黑料不打烊 in 1985 during Bey’s artist residency at Light Work, chronicle the community and history of South Salina Street. These prints were recently gifted by Bey and Stephen Daiter Gallery to celebrate the dedication of the Jeffrey J.Hoone Gallery.

“Embracing Eatonville” was a photographic survey of Eatonville, Florida—the oldest Black-incorporated town in the United States—that featured work by Bey, Lonnie Graham, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis, and was exhibited at Light Work in 2003. Bey
made color photographs of high school students combining their portraits with text sharing personal hopes, fears, and dreams.

“I was invited to do a residency at Light Work in 1985, after being introduced to the organization by my friends, photographers Michael Spano and Sy Rubin. Applying and being accepted has remained an important highlight of my career almost forty years later,” Bey says. “It was the first time I was also able to have the kind of absolute support that allowed me to have what is still one of my most productive months ever as an artist. That support was something that I’d never experienced before, and it allowed for a profound burst of creative activity, going out into the 黑料不打烊 community every day to make photographs without the worry about how that investment of time would be remunerated.”

The projects will be on display in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work (316 Waverly Ave.) from March 18 through May 17.

This exhibition features new work by Campbell, commissioned by for exhibition at UVP. Campbell was in-residence at Light Work in June of 2023 to create this work.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Crystal Z Campbell will present a special in-person event on Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. in the Everson Museum auditorium.

About the Work

An installation view of the original video, “Makahiya,” is projected onto the Everson Museum.

“Makahiya” is an original video by Crystal Z Campbell, commissioned by Light Work for the UVP architectural projection. Campbell was in-residence at Light Work in June of 2023.

“Makahiya,” a Tagalog word that translates to “shame” or “shyness”, is Campbell’s latest short experimental film. Rooted in botanical research on a plant that displays the unusual trait of thigmonasty, or touch-induced movement, Campbell’s film is structured like intertwined vines. Digital video filmed on a recent trip to their mother’s ancestral homeland in the Philippines mingles with hand-drawn animations, manipulated photographs and archival news coverage of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo and its aftermath. “Makahiya” explores this seemingly sentient plant’s paradoxical identity, from rampant “invasive” weed to medicinal plant, reflecting on photosynthesis, memory and the violent colonial impetus of regimented forgetting.

“Makahiya” is an excerpt from Campbell’s longer, forthcoming film project, “Post Masters.” This body of work is drawn from Campbell’s familial history–a Black military father formerly stationed in the Philippines and Filipinx mother hailing from the archipelago, who both retired from the U.S. Post Office. Campbell explores both explicit and implicit traces of labor, landscape, love and bodies as intimate agents, modes, and witnesses of empire ripe for decolonizing through the unraveling of sound, image and cinematic time.

About the Artist

is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker and writer of Black, Filipinx and Chinese descent whose works center around the underloved. Working through archives and omissions, Campbell finds complexity in public secrets—fragments of information known by many but under-told or unspoken. Select honors include a Creative Capital award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Award, MacDowell, Skowhegan, Rijksakademie, and Whitney ISP. Campbell was a featured filmmaker at the 67th Flaherty Film Seminar and their works have been screened or exhibited at SFMOMA, Drawing Center, ICA-Philadelphia, Artists Space, MOMA, and Block Museum amongst other venues. Their short film, “REVOLVER,” received the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and was featured in the Berlinale Expanded Film Forum. Campbell’s writing is featured in two artist books published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, and contributions to World Literature Today, Monday Journal, GARAGE, Hyperallergic and Beacon Press. Campbell’s work will have a solo exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum in the fall of 2024 as the recipient of the Freund Fellowship. Campbell is currently an associate professor of art and media study at the University at Buffalo.

The National Endowment for the Arts grant will support Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program.

“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to Light Work, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,” says National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. “We are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.”

The grant will support Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Light Work invites between 12 and 15 artists to 黑料不打烊 to devote one month to creative projects every year. Over 400 artists have participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program, and many of them have gone on to achieve international acclaim.

The residency includes a $5,000 stipend, a furnished artist apartment, 24-hour access to its state-of-the-art facilities and generous staff support. Work by each artist-in-residence is published in a special edition of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual, along with an essay commissioned by Light Work.

Work by former artists-in-residence is also part of the Light Work Collection.

“We are thrilled to have the continued support of the National Endowment for the Arts to support our Artist-in-Residence Program,” says Dan Boardman, director of Light Work. “The NEA has been a cornerstone in building the AIR program. With this funding we offer artists a unique experience to develop new and exciting work in lens based media. We are truly grateful.”

For more information on other projects included in the NEA’s grant announcement, visit .

An opening reception will take place in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at on Thursday, April 4, from 6-7 p.m. There will be a public lecture beforehand in Watson Theater from 5-6 p.m. The exhibition will run through Friday, May 17.

This event is part of the 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center’s 20th annual 黑料不打烊 Symposium, focused on a “Landscapes” theme for 2023-24.

“60 Squares” (Photo courtesy of Sophia Chai)

“While being carried on the back of my mother in our neighborhood of Busan, I would point at the signs and repeat the words that Mom would read to me,” says Chai. “Soon I was able to read without understanding all of the words. The ease of learning to read the Korean alphabet is because there is a certain logic. The shapes of the vowel characteristics, for instance, correlate with how open or closed you could make the inside space of your mouth in making each word. Each character is a picture diagram of the space inside the mouth.”

In 1987, Chai immigrated to New York City from South Korea as a teenager without knowing English. Looking back, she has described that experience as feeling untethered to any internal compass that she could use to navigate her place in a new country with a new language. She visually explains these experiences by reinterpreting the Korean language’s characters in photographs that enable us to see the contradictions of visual and verbal communication. Her images rest in the space between intellect and intuition.

Chai’s curiosity about the interior space of her tool—the large format camera, comparable to the interior space of a mouth—leads to the idea of the camera obscura, a darkened room with a small opening to the world. Chai uses optics (focal length, perspective, perception and magnification) to pin down the marks, rubbings and paintings on her studio walls. The overall effect is a collage of ideas, with an efficient yet complicated economy of picture making with intentional gaps. These gaps can describe the moment right before the sound of a word comes out of the interior space of the mouth. One’s mouth may understand and sound out words, but one’s conscious knowledge of their meaning may not be fully there yet. This liminal space is the punctuated strength and slippery ambiguity of her photographs.

Chai is an artist who remains open and disciplined, committing to the mindset of the child at odds with that of the adult. The photographs born from this are restrained but not withholding.

About the Artist

was born in Busan, South Korea. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chai has presented her work widely at sites including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Knockdown Center and multiple galleries. The city of Rochester and Destination Medical Center in Minnesota have commissioned her first permanent public outdoor art project to be completed in early 2024. Chai is represented by Hair+Nails Gallery. She lives and works in Rochester, MN.

Story by Cali Banks, communications coordinator, Light Work

Cjala Surratt ’22 in her shop, Black Citizens Brigade. Photos by Hope Alvarez

On a recent trip to visit extended family, Cjala Surratt ’22, founder of the , was presented with a gift—her late grandmother’s boiler room jacket. Surratt’s grandmother had been a ship-fitter in Norfolk, Virginia, and the clothing item had been a welcome surprise for Surratt, a vintage clothing fanatic.

Even more surprising than the jacket, however, was the history behind the woman who wore it.

“Did you know she was the first Black female union leader for the shipyard?” a relative asked Surratt during her visit. Surratt’s grandmother, who had stepped up to do the job no one else wanted, had been trailed by a security detail at the time, as the owners of the commercial port were against unionization.

“I was like, wait, what?” says Surratt. “This is exactly what I mean—that clothes can be the prompt for these broader stories.”

For Surratt, clothes have always been a conduit for storytelling. Following her graduation from 黑料不打烊 and ten subsequent years spent as the director of marketing for , the University’s nonprofit photography studio, Suratt opened the Black Citizens Brigade, a downtown storefront dedicated to amplifying Black history through clothes, books and art.

Surratt’s grandmother’s jacket is displayed at the Black Citizens Brigade.

“For Black and brown people, or those who’ve historically experienced economic disparity, upcycling has always been an economic imperative,” says Surratt. “I think I’m part of continuing that legacy.”

Legacy is the through line of Surratt’s work. Her love of vintage clothing came from growing up in a family of seamstresses, milliners and creatives. During the early days of COVID-19, Surratt and her daughter would peruse the racks of Goodwill, one of the few businesses open at the time. With many elderly people going into nursing homes, the pandemic made thrift stores abundant with discarded clothes from families cleaning out their parents’ closets, says Surratt.

Once her home began overflowing with garments from thrifting trips, she decided it was time to finally take the leap and pursue establishing her own shop. After months of working with the 黑料不打烊 Downtown Committee, scouring listings for vacant storefronts and organizing her collection, Surratt opened the Black Citizens Brigade in June of 2023 and has been providing downtown 黑料不打烊 with an eclectic mix of clothing, culture and community ever since.

Today, Black Citizens Brigade sells hard-to-find items that center on Black history, specializing in clothes from the 1980s, along with vintage books, magazines and records. The time period of the clothes is an ode to Surratt’s fascination with the aesthetics of that time, while the book selections represent her commitment to education.

“The clothes and the books are prompts for larger conversations about race, culture, history and gender,” says Surratt. “And so, the books all center on Black community, Black history, Black culture.”

Surratt’s blending of learning through culture stretches back to her time at 黑料不打烊, where she studied stage theater through the and minored in cultural anthropology and psychology. Later on, she came back as a continuing education student to finish credits part-time through the . She credits specific parts of her education, such as doing character studies that involved thinking about the history of trends, as helping her in her current career.

“The common thread is understanding people—a desire to know why people arrive at the choices they make, and also a deep curiosity about culture and community,” she says.

Since its opening, Black Citizens Brigade has Surratt’s community to thank for the store’s success. She’s leveraged her upbringing in 黑料不打烊 and attendance and former job at the University to bring more attention to her space.

Downtown, where businesses founded by people of color statistically don’t last as long as businesses with white business owners, is where the physical storefront is located, Surratt says. However, Surratt knows that being a visible part of the community beyond the brick-and-mortar is crucial, as it shares the message that Black and brown businesses are here to stay.

“We’re at a very pivotal time in our city to bring the message,” says Surratt.

Looking forward, Surratt hopes to expand her storefront and host interactive events, such as poetry workshops and listening sessions. In her store lined with archival photos of Black domestic life, Surratt is aiming to cultivate a feeling of homecoming for all who enter.

“I want it to feel like you’re coming into a Black family photo album.”

Story by Isabel Bekele, communications assistant in the College of Professional Studies

Jeffrey J. Hoone, former executive director of Light Work

Watson Auditorium was the site of last month’s dedication ceremony for the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery and endowment fund at Light Work, named for the longtime former executive director. Hoone, an award-winning artist, retired in 2021 after more than 40 years with 黑料不打烊, but has remained deeply engaged with Light Work.

Jeffrey Hoone and 黑料不打烊 Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems

Members of the arts community came together in celebration of the dedication, including Light Work Director Dan Boardman and 黑料不打烊 Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems, who read a statement from artist Dawoud Bey. Some 150 people—artists, students, family members and friends of Hoone—attended the event.

The gallery and fund were established by Hoone and Weems, with additional funding from alumnus Richard L. Menschel ’55, charitable foundation Joy of Giving Something Inc. and others.

黑料不打烊 Artist in Residence Carrie Mae Weems

“Light Work’s mission is to support emerging and underrepresented artists,” Boardman says. “Our newly minted Hoone Gallery will continue with its special focus on the talent right here in Central New York. This gift ensures that artists will be seen in this space for the long term. It is truly a remarkable gift both to Light Work and more broadly to the community at 黑料不打烊 and beyond. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Jeff’s hard work, dedication and vision.”

Light Work Director Dan Boardman

Light Work, housed in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 黑料不打烊, was founded as an artist-run nonprofit in 1973. Hoone led the organization from 1982 to 2021; during his tenure, Light Work sponsored 503 artists-in-residence, hosted more than 400 exhibitions, offered more than 1,000 classes and workshops and published more than 220 issues of the photography magazine Contact Sheet.

For more information, visit .

Sharron Higgins, sister of Jeffrey Hoone, speaks with guests following the dedication ceremony.

Organizers of the community photographic project, “,” want to visualize just that and are asking 黑料不打烊 families to share their family photos and stories on camera to create a living photo archive. Community members—particularly those whose histories have been marginalized—are invited to talk about their family histories at a recorded interview station, digitize their family photos for later exhibition and have new portraits taken with their family photographs.

Thomas Allen Harris

The project is designed to build a more inclusive history of the city. It takes place Oct. 13-15 through a?series of activities and events with Yale University artist and filmmaker and his . The initiative is being coordinated by students and faculty in the University’s Turning the Lens Collective. The group is composed of , associate professor of English; , a Ph.D. candidate in English; , a Ph.D. candidate in history; Sarhia Rahim ’26, a policy studies major and Aniyah Jones ’25, an English and textual studies and psychology major.

Three Weekend Events

Events include a film screening and discussion of “: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People,” with Harris (, from 6 to 8 p.m.). The with community members takes place , from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A to celebrate the archived images and oral storytelling is planned on , from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., and includes music, poetry and special guests. All events take place at the Everson Museum at 401 Harrison St. in downtown 黑料不打烊.

Hallas says the project will build a testament to marginalized families from across the city, cultivate a more inclusive archival history of 黑料不打烊 and recognize the people suppressed, forgotten or lost to a highway (the I-81 viaduct) that created a decadeslong economic and racial barrier in 黑料不打烊.

“黑料不打烊 is experiencing significant transformation and renewed hope for economic progress spurred by Micron’s multi-billion-dollar investment in a semiconductor megafacility, the city’s decades of commitment to refugee resettlement and the redevelopment of housing, transportation and industry when a community grid replaces the I-81 viaduct,” Hallas says. “Yet, in moving forward equitably, it’s necessary to remember and document the past. 黑料不打烊 remains one of the most impoverished and segregated cities in the nation, specifically for its Black and Latinx communities. In its redevelopment of housing, transportation and industry, the city must not repeat the systemic violence of the past.”

Community members shared treasured photos with Jessica Terry-Elliot, right center, along with their memories of family.

Jessica Terry-Elliott, a project co-organizer, researches the application of various methodologies that comprise what scholars call “Black archival practices.”?She says Family Pictures 黑料不打烊 will use oral history methods?coupled with the captured moments of Black life in photographs that are?often held in domestic?repositories.

“Using these methods to develop this project?is an actual application of Black archival practices,” Terry-Elliot says. “It will reveal the complexities of how Black life in 黑料不打烊 was and is documented and remembered,?while at the same time constructing pathways to engage with memory for?the future.”

Collective member Charles is writing a dissertation on the Black visual archive in film. “I’ve discovered that family photographs play a tremendous role in shaping our identity and history beyond the purview of our institutional archives,” Charles says. “The photographs we all keep in our homes—hanging on walls or tucked inside family albums—contribute to a larger story. Yet, those items are not always seen as important historical knowledge. This project affirms our photographs are themselves invaluable archives that should be studied and celebrated as such.”

Collective member and undergraduate student Aniyah Jones ’25 looks over a collection of family photos.

Undergraduate students Jones and Rahim have supported the initiative through their 黑料不打烊 Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE) appointments as research assistants on the project. A team of undergraduate students from the department of film and media arts and the Orange Television Network will staff the photo-sharing event and students in Hallas’ upcoming “Everyday Media and Social Justice” and Jessica Terry-Elliott’s “Public History” courses in spring 2024 will further the project after its launch.

?The collective is also coordinating with the Network’s WriteOut 黑料不打烊, a youth afterschool program designed to get students Interested In writing and storytelling, and Black and Arab Relationalities, a Mellon Foundation-funded research project led by College of Arts and Sciences faculty members and .

Wide Community Connections

Organizers are working with the Community Folk Art Center, Onondaga Historical Association and the North Side Learning Center and are collaborating with several other 黑料不打烊 community organizations for future programming.

Many sources of funding have made the project possible, including the University’s departments of African American Studies; anthropology; communication and rhetorical studies; English; film and media arts; history; Jewish studies; Latino/Latin American studies; LGBTQ studies; policy studies; religion; sociology; television, radio and film; visual communications; women’s and gender studies; and writing. External funding has been provided by Humanities NY and the Allyn Family Foundation.

Also sponsoring the project are the Democratizing Knowledge project; Engaged Humanities Network; SOURCE; Special Collections Research Center; 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center; The Alexa; Lender Center for Social Justice; Light Work and Orange Television Network.

In November, the Special Collections Research Center at Bird Library will host “Family Pictures in the Archive” (, 5 to 7 p.m.). The exhibition displays Black photographs from the University’s collections along with community photos archived during the Family Pictures 黑料不打烊 events.

Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach at the 黑料不打烊 Art Museum, provides a tour during an open house.

Established in 2005, the mission of CMAC is to support the legacy network of cornerstone art organizations at 黑料不打烊 by celebrating and exploring the arts and humanities culture through robust programming, exhibitions, publications, education, scholarship and public engagement.

CMAC consists of eight University and affiliated organizations: 黑料不打烊 Art Museum, the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery, the Community Folk Art Center, Light Work (which includes the Urban Video Project), Point of Contact, La Casita, the Special Collections Research Center, and the Photography and Literacy Project.

Get to know CMAC and its coalition members, and be sure to visit their respective websites for a full listing of upcoming programs and exhibitions.?You can also stay up-to-date on by visiting the 黑料不打烊 events calendar.

黑料不打烊 Art Museum

Located in the Shaffer Art Building, the acquires and preserves important works of art, serving as a museum-laboratory for exploration, experimentation and discussion. The teaching museum fosters diverse and inclusive perspectives by uniting students across campus with each other and the local and global community, engaging with artwork to bring us together and examining the forces that keep us apart.

Tanisha Jackson, Ph.D., executive director of the Community Folk Art Center, poses with art from Shaniqua Gay’s “Carry the Wait” exhibition.

Community Folk Art Center

The . (CFAC) was founded in 1972 by the late Herbert T. Williams, a professor of African American studies, in collaboration with University faculty, students, local artists and 黑料不打烊 city residents. CFAC promotes and cultivates artists from the African diaspora, celebrating cultural and artistic pluralism by collecting, exhibiting, teaching and interpreting the visual and expressive arts. CFAC is a proud unit of the Department of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, serving as a beacon of artistry, creativity and cultural expression.

Light Work

Housed in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, was founded as an artist-run, nonprofit organization in 1973. Its mission is to provide direct support through residencies, publications, exhibitions, a community-access digital lab facility and other related projects to emerging and underrepresented artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging.

Urban Video Project

(UVP) is a Light Work program in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County. UVP is an outdoor architectural projection venue dedicated to the public presentation of film, video and moving image arts, enhancing Central New York’s reputation as one of the birthplaces of video art.

Point of Contact

, Inc. fosters a collaborative model to explore contemporary visual and verbal arts, working across disciplines and cultures. Founded in 1975, Point of Contact is an organization in residence at 黑料不打烊, with offices in the Nancy Cantor Warehouse in downtown 黑料不打烊 and is an open forum for diverse identities to engage in open dialogue, working expansively across intellectual, social and geographic boundaries.

La Casita

is a program of 黑料不打烊 established to advance an educational and cultural agenda of civic engagement through research, cultural heritage preservation, media and the arts—bridging the Hispanic communities of the University and Central New York. La Casita Cultural Center is located in the historic Lincoln Building in the city of 黑料不打烊’s Near Westside neighborhood.

Special Collections Research Center

Located on the sixth floor of Bird Library, the (SCRC) advances scholarship and learning by collecting, preserving and providing access to rare books, manuscripts and other primary source materials. SCRC’s collections document the history of the University and our global society through printed materials, photographs, artworks, audio and moving image recordings, University records and more.

Photography and Literacy Project

The (PAL) brings University students into 黑料不打烊 City Schools to develop projects involving photography, video, audio recording and writing. The objective is to improve student’s writing and reading skills by linking these studies with photography, video and poetry. PAL Project also connects graduate and undergraduate student mentors and educators-in-training to community youth in an experiential learning environment.

CMAC is an initiative that falls under strategic initiatives in academic affairs at 黑料不打烊. To learn more, contact Miranda Traudt G’11, assistant provost for arts and community programming.

The semester kicks off with several key events next week. All are free and open to the public.

Thursday, Sept. 14

4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
黑料不打烊 Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

• Onondaga Nation artist ceramic works exhibition, “,” is part of the museum’s 2023-24 黑料不打烊 Symposium, “Landscape.” His work illustrates Haudenosaunee culture as a continuum that has resisted and persisted despite attacks on the confederacy’s lands, sovereignty and cultural identity.

5 to 7 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Hall, 316 Waverly Ave.

• Photographs by taken in his childhood hometown of Phoenix, Arizona explore personal histories of family, community and environment.

5 to 7 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Hall, 316 Waverly Ave.

• Photographs from 2023 Grant in Photography award recipients Amy Kozlowski, Linda Moses and Tahila Mintz are featured.

Friday, Sept. 15

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
黑料不打烊 Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

• Onondaga Nation artist Peter B. Jones will discuss how his art comments on the Haudenosaunee cultural continuance and the challenges the Haudenosaunee people have faced through time.

6 to 8 p.m.
La Casita Cultural Center, 109 Otiso St., 黑料不打烊

• Highlighting the works of Chicano artists Cayetano Valenzuela (黑料不打烊) and Zeke Pe?a (El Paso, Texas) “” focuses on Latino futurism and includes art by La Casita’s summer program youth. This community event kicks off La Casita’s fall season and observes Latine Heritage Month, which runs Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Community Folk Art Center, 805 E. Genesee St., 黑料不打烊

• Local musicians perform music by African American jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane.

In addition, another exhibition opens the following week.

September 21

:
“In Pursuit of Justice: Pan Am Flight 103”
4:30 to 6 p.m.
Bird Library, 6^th floor gallery, 222 Waverly Ave.

• The exhibition documents the Dec. 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that claimed the lives of 270 individuals, including 35 students returning from studying abroad through 黑料不打烊. Featuring materials donated to Libraries’ Research Center by victims’ loved ones and investigative team members, the exhibition provides an overview of the disaster, investigation and first trial.

For details about current and upcoming exhibitions and other events hosted by the Coalition for Museums and Art Centers, refer to the throughout the year.

(Featured photo: “Bomba, 2022 by Eduardo L. Rivera)

Miranda Traudt

Traudt will provide operational and programming leadership for arts, humanities and community-focused academic initiatives at the University and within the 黑料不打烊 community to support faculty and student engagement. She will work closely with the Coalition of Museums and Art Centers, South Side and Community Initiatives, Light Work, the Shaw Center and various community partners and stakeholders.

Traudt is an experienced arts administrator and educator who has managed art centers and galleries in the region and has been responsible for multi-faceted arts programming. Most recently, she oversaw the curation, administration and promotion of arts and cultural initiatives at the State University of New York at Oswego, where she developed and implemented a shared vision for a comprehensive arts program serving campus and community audiences. At SUNY Oswego, she also spearheaded creation of the college’s first artist-in-residence program that focused on artistic engaging with issues of diversity, intersectionality, inclusion and belonging.

Previously at 黑料不打烊, she served four years as the managing director of Point of Contact. She also served as program director at Auburn’s Schweinfurth Art Center and has taught in the areas of arts management and museum studies and art history at several area colleges and universities.?

Traudt received a B.F.A. in the history of art and design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She earned two master’s degrees, one in museum studies and another in art history, from 黑料不打烊 in 2011.

“We welcome Miranda back to the 黑料不打烊 campus. We are excited to put her skills and knowledge to significant use in this integral role serving multiple arts, humanities and community relations arenas,” Haddix says. “She will be a wonderful asset to this office’s wide range of operations at the many important centers, art spaces and organizations we work with and with our campus and community stakeholders.”

• Program 1: Wednesday, April 19, at 7 p.m. in Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building
• Program 2: Thursday, April 20, at 6:30 p.m. in the Everson Museum Auditorium

Program 2 will also be available to view online in a live steam on Thursday, May 25, at 6:30 p.m ET. RSVP required.

In the work of Muriente and Cuthand, we meet the inhabitants of lands scarred by legacies of toxic colonialism and violent extraction. Here, survival is a mode of resistance, and it is done by making space for grief, fear, and doubt but also moments of humor, intimacy, care, and, in the words of Sofía Gallisá Muriente, “obstinate joy.”

(Please note that the films in these programs include discussion or depictions of sexual situations and natural disasters. Please contact info@urbanvideoproject.com with any questions about content.)

Puerto Rican artist, Sofia Gallisa-Muriente, poses for a portrait in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 24, 2021. (Photo by Erika P. Rodriguez for The Great Discontent)

is a Puerto Rican visual artist whose work resists colonial forces of erasure and claims the freedom of historical agency, proposing mechanisms for remembering and reimagining. She has been a fellow of the Smithsonian Institute and the Flaherty Seminar. She has exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, the Queens Museum, ifa Galerie in Berlin, and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. From 2014 to 2020, she co-directed the artist-run organization Beta-Local. She is currently a fellow of the Puerto Rican Arts Initiative and the Cisneros Institute at MoMA.

makes short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in S?o Paulo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Ann Arbour Film Festival, Images in Toronto, Berlinale in Berlin, New York Film Festival, Outfest, and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. His work has also been shown at The National Gallery in Ottawa, the Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA in New York, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis among other venues. He is a trans man who uses he/him pronouns. He is of Plains Cree and Scots descent, a Little Pine First Nation member and currently resides in Toronto, Canada. He is at work on his first feature.

Sponsors

Program 1 and 2 are co-presented with the , Give Us the Camera (GUT-C) through a Wege Grant, the Indigenous Students at 黑料不打烊 and the Native Student Program and at 黑料不打烊.

Program 2 is co-presented with Canary Lab and the Visiting Artist Lecture Series of the School of Art in the 黑料不打烊 , and the Everson Museum of Art.

UVP exhibitions and events are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature and by the County of Onondaga through the Tier Three Program administered by CNY Arts.

Credit: Dawoud Bey

Impressive in its breadth and depth, the exhibition is a thoughtful curation of images and objects that have entered Light Work’s collection since the organization’s inception in 1973. Only the generosity of former Light Work artists-in-residence, grant awardees and individual donations have made this possible.

Light Work’s 50th anniversary presents a unique opportunity to share with the local, regional and national community the legacy of support the organization has extended to emerging and under-represented artists working in photography, lens-based media and digital image-making.

More than 4,000 photographic prints, objects and ephemera from an extensive and diverse archive are the basis of this exhibition. The selection maps out the many programs and partnerships representing 50 years of our commitment to increasing the visibility of lens-based artists.

The exhibition also highlights the hundreds of artists who came to 黑料不打烊 to expand their practice and make new work. Highlights in the show include images from acclaimed photographers Dawoud Bey (residency 1985), Wendy Red Star (Ellis Gallery 2019), Alessandra Sanguinetti (residency 2002, Main Gallery 2003), Cindy Sherman (residency 1981), Hank Willis Thomas (residency 2006), Carrie Mae Weems (residency 1988), James Welling (residency 1986) and many more.

Deborah Willis

The five-month celebratory retrospective will boast a full roster of exhibition-related special events, workshops, docent-led tours, and an artist lecture with award-winning historian, author, curator, photographer and former Light Work residency participant (1990), Deborah Willis, Ph.D. Light Work will host Willis’ lecture in the Everson Museum’s Hosmer Auditorium on Thursday, April 13, at 6:30 p.m.

Willis is a University Professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is also the director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture. Her body of work examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers, and beauty. She is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her many landmark publications include “The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship” and “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.” Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include “Home: Reimagining Interiority” at YoungArts in Miami, “Framing Moments” at the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, “Migrations and Meanings in Art,” and “Free As They Want to Be: Artists Committed to Memory” at FotoFocus 2022.

Guanyu Xu

Debuting at Light Work this week is “”?by Chicago-based photographer Guanyu Xu. Opening on Thursday, Oct. 27, in Light Work’s Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, this solo exhibition depicts an artist caught in a web of red tape. The work on view for this exhibition comprises images from Xu’s ongoing series, “Resident Aliens,” as well as a large grid of images that he calls “Suspension.”

Both bodies of work use visa status in the United States as a means of framing images that depict people who are suspended between countries and cultures. Their futures hang on faceless state agencies in a churning political current.

Xu’s practice examines the production of power in photography as well as the fate of personal freedom and its relationship to political regimes. He negotiates these questions from his perspective as a Chinese gay man. Xu makes use of photography, new media and installation, and his work across media intentionally reflects aspects of his displaced and fractured identity.

“Suspended Status” runs through Thursday, Dec. 15. A reception with Xu and his gallery talk takes place on Thursday, October 27, at 6 p.m. in Light Work’s Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public, with light refreshments. Find Light Work in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Ave.

(Photo courtesy of the artist)

About the Artist

Born in Beijing in 1993, currently makes Chicago his base. He is a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His major influences are the production of ideology in American visual culture and a conservative familial upbringing in China. He is the recipient of the CENTER Development Grant (2021), Chicago DCASE Artist Grant (2022), Hyéres International Festival Prize (2020), Kodak Film Photo Award (2019), Lensculture Emerging Talent Award (2019), Philadelphia Photo Arts Center Annual Competition (2019) and PHOTO-FAIRS Shanghai Exposure Award (2020). He has been an artist-in-residence at ACRE (Chicago), Latitude (Chicago) and Light Work.

“Caribbean Dreams” runs through Thursday, Oct. 13. The reception with Samantha Box and her gallery talk takes place on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 6 p.m. in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public, with light refreshments. Find Light Work in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Ave. in 黑料不打烊.

Construction #1(1), 2018 (Photo by Samantha Box, courtesy of Light Work)

About “Caribbean Dreams”

How can artwork be risky? In artistic practice—as opposed to the way that art-speak often reduces “risk” to non-meaning and/or applies the term ubiquitously—risk is often about expectations. This meaning is front and center in Samantha Box’s new solo exhibition. In conversation with exhibition curator Dan Boardman during a studio visit, Box reflected on her new body of work. “I started to really appreciate risk in the last couple of years of this work, when I started to want to make pictures that were going into spaces that felt strange, wild and uncharted,” Box says. “I had to give myself permission to make pictures that made sense only to me—a total risk.” With “Caribbean Dreams,” Box deftly traverses this edge, expanding her approach to making images and to her new subject matter. This allows her to blend personal, familial and relevant regional materials into raw, experimental and unpredictable compositions. She fills each image with discovery, intuition and restless innovations that explore and overlay multiple diasporic Caribbean histories and identities.

Exhibition Catalog

Samantha Box’s exhibition catalog, “Contact Sheet 218,” and signed limited-edition fine prints titled “Tropical Family Portrait, 2020” will be available for purchase after the reception and in Light Work’s online shop.

Samantha Box (portrait courtesy of the artist)

Artist Biography

is a Jamaican-born, Bronx-based photographer. She has exhibited work at the DePaul Art Museum, Houston Center of Photography, the ICP Museum and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Box has been an artist-in-residence at both the Center of Photography at Woodstock and Light Work. She received an M.F.A. in advanced photographic studies from the International Center of Photography/Bard College (2019) and a certificate in photojournalism and documentary studies from the International Center of Photography (2006). She has twice received the NYFA Fellowship in Photography (2010 and 2022)

Related Programming

Light Work hosts supplemental programming in its gallery spaces to support exhibition-related events, conversations and tours. With great excitement, we announce the “2022 Light Work Grants in Photography: Carlton Daniel, Jr. Lacey McKinney, Sarah Phyllis Smith”?will be on view concurrently in Light Work’s Hallway Gallery.

Gallery Hours, Admission and General Information

Find Light Work’s galleries in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 9 p.m. Light Work closes on all major holidays. Contact Light Work to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab. Follow Light Work on, and . For general information, please visit , call 315.443.1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Parking
Limited metered parking is available on Waverly Avenue and paid parking is available in the Booth Parking Garage. Visit ?for more information on parking and directions to the galleries.

Robert B. Menschel

“Bob was truly a model of service to 黑料不打烊,” says Board chair Kathleen A. Walters ’73. “First elected to the Board of Trustees in 1981, he served as a voting trustee for more than two decades, becoming a trustee emeritus and part of a select group of honorary trustees recognized for their contributions. From exhibitions to lecture series to professorships and endowed chairs, Bob supported creativity, innovation and academic excellence that defines this university.”

Menschel earned a bachelor of science degree from the College of Business Administration in 1951. After earning a degree from the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University in 1954, he joined Goldman Sachs & Co. where he founded the first Institutional Department, which became the model for the securities industry. Menschel subsequently became a partner in charge of institutional sales and later rose to become one of the firm’s senior directors. In 2002, he published “Markets, Mobs & Mayhem: A Modern Look at the Madness of Crowds,” where he explored the phenomenon of crowd psychology and its effects on business and culture.

Along with his Board of Trustees work, which included serving on the executive and investment and endowment committees, Menschel served on the Commitment to Learning Campaign, the Schine National Committee and the Ballentine Center Committee. His philanthropic support was widespread, including the Paul Volcker Endowed Chair in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; the Robert B. Menschel Endowed Fund; the Maxwell-Eggers Building Fund; the Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professorship in the Humanities; and the William Safire Chair in Modern Letters. He was lauded for his foresight when he provided a gift in 2001 to establish The University Lectures, a cross-disciplinary lecture series bringing to 黑料不打烊 individuals of exceptional accomplishment in the areas of architecture and design; the humanities and the sciences; and public policy, management and communications.

His philanthropy supported the renovation of Light Work and Community Darkrooms in the Watson Theater Complex, which was dedicated as the Robert B. Menschel Media Center. He was the major sustaining private supporter of Light Work and Community Darkrooms, providing financial support, resources and extensive collections of photographs to the Light Work holdings and for exhibitions in the Robert B. Menschel Photography Gallery.

Similarly, Menschel was widely praised and recognized for his support of photography exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography?at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. The 2016-17 MoMA exhibition titled “The Shape of Things: Photographs from Robert B. Menschel”?told the story of photography over 150 years from its start in 1843, and featured works acquired over 40 years with Menschel’s support. Menschel was a member of the Committee on Photography at MoMA with building the vast photography collection through financial support and donations from his personal collection.

The 2017 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, titled “Posing for the Camera: Gifts from Robert B. Menschel,”?once again demonstrated his passionate advocacy for photography. The exhibition explored portraiture and featured photographs acquired with funds from Menschel or pledged as gifts from his personal collection.

Robert Menschel, second from left, accepts the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy from Harvey Fineberg of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2015. Judy Woodruff and Vartan Gregorian of the Carnegie Corp. of New York, in background, were also on stage at the event at the New York Public Library. Photo by Filip Wolak (Source: Carnegie Corp. of New York)

In 2015, Robert and his brother Richard L. Menschel ’55 shared the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, which honors those who that “with wealth comes a responsibility to contribute to the world’s betterment and a more open and just society.” In the medal presentation, it was noted that the brothers’ “dedication and talent took them both to the top of the investment banking field at prestigious Goldman Sachs, and they have been giving back in countless ways for decades.” Robert was quoted as saying “there is no mode of disposing of surplus wealth creditable to thoughtful and earnest men into whose hands it flows save by using it year by year for the general good.”

Menschel received the University’s George Arents Pioneer Medal in 1980 for “excellence in business, excellence in life” and was awarded an honorary degree by 黑料不打烊 in 1991. In 1999, he was awarded the Martin J. Whitman School of Management’s Jonathan J. Holtz Alumnus of the Year award.

Beyond his Board work at 黑料不打烊, Menschel served as chairman of The Vital Projects Fund Inc., a charitable foundation with an interest in human rights and criminal justice reform; chairman emeritus and former president of MoMA; member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the New York Presbyterian Hospital; honorary trustee and former board president of the Dalton School; member of the trustee council of the National Gallery of Art; and member of the Council on Foreign?Relations where he is the namesake of the Robert B. Menschel Economics Symposium.

He is survived by his partner, Janet Wallach; his former wife, Joyce Frank Menschel; his children, David Frank Menschel and Lauren Elizabeth Menschel; several grandchildren; and his brother and sister-in-law, Richard Menschel ’55 and Ronay Menschel.

Crowd No. 1 (Image by Melisa Catanese)

An opening reception with Catanese will be held on Thursday, March 24, from 5-7 p.m.? An artist talk with Catanese will begin at 6 p.m. and be followed by a Q&A with reception guests. Signed copies of her exhibition catalog, “Contact Sheet 216,” will be available for purchase after the talk. The reception and artist talk are free and open to the public.

The exhibition is on display in Light Work’s Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery,? located in the , 316 Waverly Avenue, through July 22. Visit the for more information on gallery hours.

About the Exhibition

Catanese borrows the title of the exhibition from literature. In Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, a village casually embarks on a yearly ritual of selecting an individual and then stoning them to death. Catanese’s “The Lottery” teases out similar themes regarding ritual, culture and the diffused accountability of a mob.

Image by Melissa Catanese

Catanese’s work blends anonymous photographs, press clips and images from NASA’s archive with her own. Single images resemble sentence fragments that Catanese completes with her sequences. Sometimes seamlessly blending in, Catanese’s own images also act as punctuation throughout the work. This creates a sensation of call and response between the archival material and Catanese’s own images that brings to mind the Chauvet Cave in southeastern France. There, brilliant cave paintings date back 37,000 years. Over this enormous stretch of time, additional visitors added their own marks to the cave murals, sometimes with gaps of more than 5,000 years. The idea that collaboration can reach across time, decoding or willfully rethinking, is present throughout “The Lottery.”

makes artist’s books and installations from photographic images, both personal and anonymous. For some years, she has been editing images from Peter J. Cohen’s photography collection of more than 30,000 vernacular and found anonymous photographs spanning the early to mid-20th century. Catanese combines photographs from her own archive with Cohen’s found images to create elliptical narratives. In doing so, she questions photographic authorship and the apparent transparency of the photographic image’s meaning. Her readings become personal, intuitive and openly poetic. She is the author of “Dive Dark Dream Slow” (2012), “Dangerous Women” (2013), “Hells Hollow Fallen Monarch” (2015) and “Voyagers” (2018). Catanese holds a B.F.A. from Columbus College of Art and Design (2001) and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2006). She has exhibited work at Aperture Foundation (New York City), Cleveland Museum of Art, Mulhouse Biennial of Photography (Mulhouse, France), No Found Photo Fair (Paris) and Pier 24 Photography (San Francisco). Catanese is the founder of Spaces Corners, an artist-run photography bookshop and project space in Pittsburgh. Her teaching appointments include, most recently, the University of Pittsburgh.

The exhibition runs through Thursday, March 10, at Light Work, located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave. A reception with the exhibiting artists will be held on Thursday, March 3, from 6-7 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Image by Tori Sampson, who took Best of Show honors

The exhibiting artists are Alice Adams, Luke Anaclerio, Lauren Bertelson, Marijke Pieters-Kwiers, Abigail Fritz, Corey Henry, Erik Liu, Qirui Ma, Paola Manzano, Tori Sampson, Keqin Wang and Sarah Winn. Artist and activist Jay Simple served as juror and selected images for Best of Show and Honorable Mention awards. Sampson took Best of Show honors, with Wang as Runner-up. The Honorable Mention award went to Pieters-Kwiers.

“Over the course of nearly two years what we have known as ‘normal’ has been disrupted, at times for better and for worse. Through these moments artists, like those included in this exhibition, have rededicated themselves to exploring, documenting, analyzing and engaging with aspects of the human experience,” says Simple. “Looking into these moments we find the breadth and complexity of our contemporary moment as we struggle and strive to come to terms with the mutuality of our isolation, the need for radical care of ourselves and the relationships and connections that we hold dear. Melancholy and joy resonate in this space and hint that we must abandon a didactic aesthetic to embrace the nuanced complexity that arises from what a friend once called ‘the bittersweet quality of being alive.’ This is far from a defeated stance, and it is a recognition of the power artists have to show us our resiliency through adversity.”

Laura Heyman, associate professor of art photography in the Department of Film and Media Arts, speaks to the importance of the annual collaboration. “Art photography’s close partnership with Light Work benefits students in so many ways. All of our students become members, with access to Light Work labs and their exceptionally skilled staff. In addition to giving students the space to imagine how their thesis work might develop over the following months, the Photography Annual show introduces their work to their peers, the local community and the renowned curators and critics who jury the exhibition,” she says.

“Light Work is an invaluable intellectual, professional, and technical resource for art photography students, providing them with an extraordinary and unique range of real-world skills and experiences,” Heyman says.

Many students work with Light Work throughout their undergraduate careers and become an integral
source of the energy, passion and excitement that define the organization.

Gallery hours are: Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and
Sunday, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Contact Light Work at 315.443.1300 or info@lightwork.org to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab.

Installation view of “My Favorite Software Is Being Here” by Alison Nguyen on the Everson Museum of Art fa?ade.

Light Work’s ?presents “,” a group exhibition featuring the work of filmmakers Lana Z Caplan, Ross Meckfessel, Alison Nguyen and Matt Whitman. The installation will be on view from Jan. 27-March 26 at UVP’s outdoor projection site on the north facade of the at 401 Harrison Street, Thursday through Saturday, from dusk until 11 p.m.

“No Emoji for Ennui” explores the difficult-to-define emotional tenor of our time—one that often leaves us overstimulated and underwhelmed at the same time it demands endless positivity. The seductive surface of the touchscreen shatters and the polygon meshes underlying our shared social reality peek out from under the digital skin.

What does it feel like to be a person in a world in which our sense of self has been thoroughly disoriented by technological entanglement and co-opted by neoliberal capital?

By turns unsettling, contemplative, humorous and filled with existential dread, the resulting show is a collective selfie of who and what we are now.

Along with the exhibition, UVP will host a free screening of the “No Emoji for Ennui” program, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers, on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 6:30 p.m. ET.

For those unable to attend in person, we will offer the screening a second time as a .?“No Emoji for Ennui” is the second exhibition in the UVP 2021-22 season, titled “It’s Not a Bug, It’s the Future.” More information is available at

Plaza Projection Schedule

• Jan. 27-Feb 5: Lana Z Caplan,”Autopoiesis”
• Feb. 10-19: Ross Meckfessel, “Estuary”
• Feb. 24-March 5: Alison Nguyen, “My Favorite Software Is Being Here”
• March 10-19: Matt Whitman, “CAN’T ANSWER YOU ANYMORE (ON FACES)” and “HOW MUCH LONGER”
• March 24-26: combined loop

About the Film and Artist Biographies
In order of exhibition screening schedule:

Lana Z Caplan, “Autopoiesis”
2017 | 7:15

#aerialskiers #PyeongChangWinterOlympics #divers #LeniRiefenstal #Olympia #OpticalIllusions #SpeculativelyGeneratedOuterSpace #SelfHypnosis #SunRa #SpaceIsThePlace #4ECognition #AssaultByHashtags #MeToo #BlackLivesMatter #StillMarching #GiletJaune #Brexit #IdeasofUtopia #AfroFuturism #HashtagActivism #YouAreASystem #ConstantlyBuffeted #Maintain #LoveWins

works across various media, including single-channel films and videos in essay form, interactive installations, video art and photography. Her work is inspired by notions of utopia and the relationship of the present to history and memory. Caplan has exhibited and screened at Anthology Film Archives (New York), Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria, British Columbia), Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), Chicago Underground Film Festival, CROSSROADS Film Festival, IC Docs (Iowa City), Inside Out Art Museum (Beijing), Microscope Gallery (New York), Moving Image Festival (Scotland), Museo Tamayo, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival and San Francisco Cinematheque’s Alchemy Film. Caplan’s work is represented by Gallery NAGA (Boston) and her films are distributed by Collectif Jeune Cinéma (Paris) and Filmmaker’s Cooperative (New York).

Ross Meckfessel, “Estuary”
2021 | 12:00 | 16mm stereo sound

When you question the very nature of your physical reality it becomes much easier to see the cracks in the system. “Estuary” charts the emotional landscape of a time in flux. Inspired by the proliferation of computer-generated social media influencers and the growing desire to document and manipulate every square inch of our external and internal landscapes, Meckfessel considers the ramifications of a world where all aspects of life are curated and malleable. As time goes on, all lines blur into vector dots.

is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily in Super 8 and 16mm film. His films often emphasize materiality and poetic structures while depicting the condition of modern life through an exploration of apocalyptic obsession, contemporary ennui and the technological landscape. His work has screened internationally and throughout the United States, including in the Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria, British Columbia), IC Docs (Iowa City), Internationales Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, New York Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS Film Festival, The Artifact Small Format Film Festival (awarded best 16mm film) and Toronto International Film Festival.

Alison Nguyen, “My Favorite Software Is Being Here”
2020-21 | 19:47

A collaboration between Nguyen and a machine learning program created with Achim Koh, Andra8 is a simulacral subaltern created by an algorithm and raised by the internet in isolation in a virtual void. From the apartment where she has been “placed,” Andra8 works as a digital laborer, surviving off the data from her various “freemium” jobs as virtual assistant, data janitor, life coach, aspiring influencer and content creator. As she multitasks throughout the day, Andra8 is monitored and surveilled, finding herself overwhelmed by a web of global client demands. Something begins to trouble Andra8: Her life depends on her compulsory consumption and output of human data—or so she’s been told. Andra8 explores the implications of such an existence, and what happens when one attempts to subvert them.

is a New York City-based artist whose work spans video, installation, performance and new media. Her screenings include Ann Arbor Film Festival, Channels Festival International Biennial of Video Art, CPH:DOX, Edinburgh International Film Festival, e-flux, International Film Festival Oberhausen, Microscope Gallery, Open City Documentary Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque’s CROSSROADS Film Festival and True/False Film Festival. Nguyen’s residencies and fellowships include BRIC, the International Studio & Curatorial Program, The Institute of Electronic Arts, Signal Culture, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center, and Vermont Studio Center. Her grant awards include the Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and The New York Community Trust. In 2018, Filmmaker Magazine?featured Alison Nguyen in their . In 2021, she received a NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship in Video/Film.

Matt Whitman, “CAN’T ANSWER YOU ANYMORE (ON FACES)”
2019 | 2:19 | Super8 film transferred to video | Silent | Color

Matt Whitman, “HOW MUCH LONGER (ON BALLONS)”
2019 | 2:27 | Super8 film transferred to video | Silent | Color

These poetically elliptical, darkly humorous pieces feature extreme close-ups of the detritus of online interaction—emojis, gifs—shot on Super8 film. This medium’s low resolution and prominent film grain defamiliarize the textureless screen images while out-of-sync framerates create a fluttering, off-kilter vision of the present as future past.

is a New York City-based artist working with moving images, photography, installation, writing and performance. He has exhibited and screened his work widely at such sites as 8 fest (Toronto), Anthology Film Archives (New York City), Brooklyn Film Festival (New York City), Ethan Cohen Gallery (New York City), La MaMa (New York City), SF Cinematheque (San Francisco), The Front (New Orleans), The Kitchen (New York City), The Lab (San Francisco) and Unexposed Microcinema (Durham, North Carolina). He has taught at Parsons School of Design since 2014.

Additional Works Featured in the Screening and Q&A Events

Tulapop Saenjaroen, “People on Sunday”
Thailand | 2020 | 20:53

“People on Sunday” is a reinterpretation, a response and an homage to the 1930 German silent film, “Menschen Am Sonntag.” However, this response arises from a different context, different country, different era and different working conditions. “People on Sunday” comprises episodic stories of moving-image-related workers who work in the same performance-art-video project about free time.

is an artist and filmmaker currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. His recent works investigate the correlations between image production and production of subjectivity, as well as the paradoxes intertwining control and freedom in late capitalism. In combining the genres of narrative and the essay film, he explores subjects such as tourism, self-care and free labor. Saenjaroen received an M.F.A. in fine art media from The Slade School of Fine Art and an MA in aesthetics and politics from California Institute of the Arts.

Saenjaroen has exhibited and screened his work internationally at sites including 25FPS (Zagreb, Croatia), Asia Culture Center (Gwangju, Korea), Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, CROSSROADS at SFMOMA, FICVALDIVI (Chile), Harvard Film Archive, Images Festival (Toronto), International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Locarno Film Festival, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Museum of the Moving Image (New York City), Open City Documentary (London) and Seoul International New Media Festival.

Support for this exhibition comes from the with the support of the New York State Legislature. The related event is co-sponsored by the 黑料不打烊 School of Art Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Each year, following an international call for submissions, Light Work selects 12 to 15 artists for a one-month residency to pursue creative projects. To date, more than have participated in the residency program, and many have gone on to achieve international acclaim.?

A patron takes in a Light Work photo exhibition.

This grant signals national recognition that champions Light Work’s nearly 50-year legacy of advocacy through exhibitions, publication of the print publication Contact Sheet, a state-of-the-art community-access digital services lab, and comprising more than 4,000 photo-related objects and images.?

“We are honored by this generous recognition from the NEA,” says Dan Boardman, Light Work’s director. “This funding helps us continue to create transformative moments for artists, gallery visitors, students, educators and the public during this tenuous time in the arts community.”

GAP awards reach communities in all parts of the country, large and small, and with diverse cultural and economic backgrounds. These awards represent 15 artistic disciplines and fields: Artist Communities, Arts Education, Dance, Design, Folk and Traditional Arts, Literary Arts, Local Arts Agencies, Media Arts, Museums, Music, Musical Theater, Opera, Presenting and Multidisciplinary Works, Theater, and Visual Arts.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects that help support the community’s creative economy,” says Ann Eilers, NEA’s acting chair. “Light Work is among the arts organizations nationwide that are using the arts as a source of strength, a path to well-being and providing access and opportunity for people to connect and find joy through the arts. The supported projects demonstrate how the arts are a source of strength and well-being for communities and individuals, and can open doors to conversations that address complex issues of our time.”

For more information on other funded projects, .

A reception for Henkel and his gallery talk takes place on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public, with light refreshments.

About the Exhibition?

Whatever is discarded, broken and damaged draws James Henkel to it. The objects he collects, assembles, or deconstructs are humble, common and often no more than the scale of the human hand. Both the patina of wear and the handling that was often the source of the object’s destruction are clearly present. He presents pieces of ceramic pots, bowls, bricks, toys, combs and well-worn books in their broken fragments. Completely useless now, they remain a testimony to someone’s life. This is what Henkel elevates by photographing these found objects so directly. Tension abounds in his work between the humble and the monumental, between play and decay, between high and low. The artist cross-references grander ideas from art history, painting, and sculpture, while also pointing back to the simpler but profound experience of photographing an ordinary life.

James Henkel

James Henkel has lived his life around artists and creatives. His wife and daughter are both artists and he is professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art. In his years as an undergraduate, he discovered the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. He has remained closely tied to the school and now lives nearby. The potters, weavers, bookbinders, and artisans of Penland have influenced his thinking as he challenges the relationships between art, craft, function, and beauty. Henkel photographs objects as containers of memory. He uses his camera to focus our attention and to share a sense of wonder. Those too invested in hierarchies will miss it. This is what artists do: expose our blind spots and encourage us to see.

Over the last three months, Light Work staff have taken incremental steps toward pre-pandemic “normal.” At Light Work, there has been a progression from essential staff only to a green light on welcoming Light Work’s community of photographers and photo enthusiasts into the Kathleen O. Ellis, Hallway Galleries and lab.

For Light Work and arts institutions across the nation, the last year brought unprecedented trials that Light Work has tried to meet with a determined and creative dexterity and an unwavering commitment to support, amplify and #keepartgoing.

Light Work’s reopening includes a communitywide invitation to students, educators, local organizations and University partners to schedule use of the main gallery, library and lab studio for exhibition-related art-making, workshops, class discussions or staff-guided tours.

Light Work’s community partnerships comprise organizations that cultivate safe spaces for inquiry and critical dialogue and their approaches to both exhibitions and the ideas presented in the works are creative and interdisciplinary.

The Fall 2021 exhibition schedule offers a diverse intersection of thematic insights and photographic methods. Please join Light Work for “” (Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, Aug. 23-Oct. 14), “” (Hallway Gallery, Aug. 23-Oct. 14), “2021 Horizons: New Film Out of?Central New York” (UVP| Everson Plaza, Sept. 30), and “Hito Steyerl: Strike” (UVP| Everson Plaza, Sept. 16-Dece. 11).

members also have cause for celebration.? In preparation for welcoming the community back into the photography lab, the staff reconfigured the space. The staff have established new best practices for using state-of-the-art workspaces, darkroom, lighting studio and printers. The new guidelines ensure a safe, productive workflow that will support the needs of its members, workshop participants and artists-in-residence. Light Work adheres to the most up-to-date COVID-19 safety protocols to protect patrons, artists, students and staff.

The exhibitions run through Sept. 4, Thursday through Saturday from dusk to 11 p.m. on the northern facade of the .?The schedule can be found below.

In recognition and celebration of Juneteenth, UVP launched the 2021 Summer Review earlier this month with “” from award-winning filmmaker Ephraim Asili. “Fluid Frontiers” is the fifth and final film in the series entitled “The Diaspora Suite,” exploring Asili’s personal relationship to the African Diaspora. “Fluid Frontiers” explores the relationship between concepts of resistance and liberation, exemplified by the Underground Railroad, Broadside Press and artworks of local Detroit artists.

2020-21 Summer Review Schedule
UVP Everson | Everson Museum Plaza
Thursday through Saturday | dusk-11 p.m.

• Through July 3:
• July 8-17:
• July 21-31:
• Aug. 5-14:
• Aug. 19-Sept. 4:

Sponsors
Support for this exhibition comes from the? with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Photo by Meryl Meisler

presents ,” an exhibition of her photography of her life in and around New York City in the 1970s and 1980s.? Meisler’s?exhibition?will be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery through July 23, 2021. Mary Lee Hodgens, associate director of Light Work, will moderate a virtual conversation and Q&A with Meisler on Thursday, April 29, at 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET.

In Light Work’s early days, during the 1970s and 80s, many artists arrived for their monthlong residency with no specific plans for using their time. With only a camera and a vague idea of exploring, they walked the streets of 黑料不打烊, open to the synchronicity of what might happen. Incredible photographs ensued and the artists often called them gifts. Grateful to land in the right place at the right time, they discovered images on their contact sheets that startled and delighted them. But they also saw photography as more than random luck. It was both a collaboration and a conversation. They saw themselves as witnesses.

Over the same decades, Meryl Meisler was photographing her life in and around New York City with the same sense of exploration and possibility as those pioneering Light Work AIRs. Retiring from decades as a public school art teacher, Meisler began to unearth and rethink her own archive. Part time capsule of the 1970s and 1980s and part memoir, “” is an invitation to join her for a wild ride—disco nights, punk bars, strip clubs, Fire Island, family, friends and neighbors, and suburban Long Island. Her exuberant celebration of human connection is particularly poignant now, when we can take none of these gatherings for granted. Meisler clearly celebrates with her subjects. These are her people: she is not an outsider but a participant. She depicts our own shared humanity, humor, and joy.

“I want to show you who I am,” she says now. “My identity as a woman, Jew, lesbian, middle-class teacher, Baby Boomer, New Yorker, liberal, American—and so much more—influences how I perceive and create art about the world around me. I’ve only just begun revealing my huge photography archive. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come!

In addition to installation views on Light Work’s website we invite you to bring Meisler’s exhibition to your doorstep. Copies of “Best of Times, Worst of Times“ exhibition catalog, ?are available in the Light Work shop.?

Please note:?Light Work’s galleries are currently closed to the general public as part of our ongoing effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. We encourage patrons to visit our ?and to check out our , including an interview with exhibiting artist Meryl Meisler. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Avenue, 黑料不打烊, New York, 13224.

was born 1951 in the Bronx and raised on Long Island, New York. Inspired by Diane Arbus, Jacques Henri Lartigue, her dad Jack and grandfather Murray Meisler, she studied photography with Cavalliere Ketchum at The University of Wisconsin–Madison, and with Lisette Model in New York City.

Meisler frequented and photographed the legendary New York discos. A 1978 CETA Artist Grant supported her portfolio on Jewish identity. Upon retiring from 31 years as a New York City public school art teacher, she began releasing previously unseen work, including her books, “A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick” (Bizarre, 2014), “Purgatory & Paradise: SASSY ‘70s Suburbia & The City” (Bizarre, 2015) and “New York PARADISE LOST: Bushwick Era Disco” (forthcoming 2021).

Meisler has received support from Artists Space, CETA, China Institute, Japan Society, LMCC, Leonian Foundation, Light Work, NYFA, Puffin Foundation, VCCA, and Yaddo. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Dia Art Foundation, MASS MoCA, New Museum, New York Historical Society, Whitney Museum, and numerous public spaces. Her work is in the collections of AT&T, American Jewish Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Brooklyn Historical Society, Columbia University, Emory University, Islip Art Museum,? Library of Congress, Pfizer, Reuters and many museums’ artist book collections. Meisler lives in New York City and Woodstock, New York. ClampArt represents her work.

As we head into another weekend, I am reaching out to remind you of all the great activities happening on and around campus this weekend. Many of your fellow students, as well as members from the Student Experience team, continue to think outside the box to create fun, safe and enjoyable experiences. One thing is certain: There’s a lot going on this weekend!

Weekend Activities: Feb. 18-21

From exploring nature to ice skating, attending Orange After Dark events and participating in wellness activities, there are so many opportunities for you to try new things, meet new people and have fun—all in a safe manner. For a complete listing of events, .

Thursday, Feb. 18

Friday, Feb. 19

• ”

Saturday, Feb. 20

• ”
• ”
• ”

Sunday, Feb. 21

Easy Tips for Staying Safe

Keeping yourself and those around you safe and healthy is simple and selfless. Take these easy steps to help our community mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

• Wear a mask;
• Maintain social distance;
• Limit gatherings;
• Monitor for symptoms and complete the daily health screening;
• Do not travel outside of Central New York unless deemed essential;
• Comply with the weekly testing requirement;
• Participate in contact tracing procedures immediately and honestly; and
• Adhere to all directives from state and local authorities and the University.

We continue to recognize what a different experience it is being a college student during the time of COVID. Different can still be fun. Different can still be rewarding. And different can challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone!

I strongly encourage you to try something new this weekend, say hi to someone you’ve never met or explore a part of our community you haven’t experienced before. 黑料不打烊 and our neighbors throughout Onondaga County have so much to offer; please take full advantage of all those opportunities.

Sincerely,

Robert D. Hradsky, Ed.D.
Vice President for the Student Experience

Aaron Turner, Courtesy of Kat Wilson Photography

will exhibit more than 20 works by Arkansas-based photographer Aaron Turner in its first main gallery show of 2021. “Aaron Turner: Black Alchemy, Backwards/Forwards” will be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery through March 4, 2021. Mary Lee Hodgens, associate director of Light Work, will moderate a virtual conversation and Q&A with Turner on Thursday, Feb. 18, from 6-7 p.m. ET.

In the solitude of the studio, the artist is never alone. Quite the contrary for Aaron Turner. Sidney Poitier, Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gay, Frederick Douglas and others all move up and through the layers of cut paper and projections. The artist handles, arranges, touches both objects and beloved figures, seeking, listening, directing and responding. Some of these juxtapositions seem random, fluid, almost falling through space, but this is precisely the process Turner invites us to witness.

“We are excited to have Aaron Turner back at Light Work with an exhibition of selections from his ongoing Black Alchemy series,” says Hodgens. “When he was here as an Artist in Residence in 2018, he intrigued us with his studio practice and his process of building a photograph, often combining methods of collage and abstraction. He is also a painter and sculptor and his ease with multiple media creates great energy and cross-pollination of ideas. Turner’s work is elegant and formally striking, deeply conversant in the work of both predecessors and contemporary colleagues, and he tells important stories about people of color from the Arkansas and Mississippi Deltas.”

Aaron Turner, “Black Alchemy Vol. 2”

In addition to installation views on Light Work’s website, we invite you to bring Turner’s exhibition to your doorstep. Copies of the “Black Alchemy, Backwards/Forwards” exhibition catalog, are available in the Light Work shop.?

Please note: Light Work’s galleries are currently closed to the general public as part of our ongoing effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. We encourage patrons to visit our and to check out our , including an interview with exhibiting artist Aaron Turner.

About the Exhibition

Aaron Turner’s Arkansas Delta community and family taught him to know and understand African American history, honor its heroes and respect his elders. The simple and profound gift of this upbringing has allowed him to pursue the role of Black artist and activist in our culture with unapologetic, single-minded intensity. Turner is in many ways acknowledging, standing on and building from this foundation in his work. With deep affinity for the formal qualities of black-and-white photography, Aaron Turner uses his large format camera and the alchemical darkroom process to move back and forth between abstraction, still life, collage and appropriated archival images to literally take apart and then reconstruct his photographic images. The color black itself has a presence in this work—infinite, elegant, unknowable. Turner is also a painter; his use of large swaths of black is both a metaphor for race and related to abstraction and its emphasis on process, materials and color itself as subject.

About Artist Aaron Turner

Besides his studio practice, Aaron Turner is a teacher, curator, writer, founder of the Center for Photographers of Color (CPoC) at the University of Arkansas and host of the CPoC podcast. Active in the photo and contemporary art community, he often uses these platforms to discuss his primary muses: other Black artists and activists. Bring a pen and notebook, because Turner is a name dropper in the best sense and you will want to look up these painters, sculptors, photographers, athletes and activists whom he reveres, some hallowed and some obscure (for now). His generosity reminds one of artists like Deborah Willis, Carrie Mae Weems and Zanele Muholi, who all—understanding art and power—have made it their business to bring a community of artists along with them through the doorway and into the spotlight. He too arrives en masse: perhaps his greatest tribute to his elders in the Arkansas Delta.

General Information?

Find Light Work’s galleries in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊. Follow Light Work on , ?and . For general information, please visit , call 315.443.1300 or email info@lightwork.org.

Dan Lyon, “Purgatory,” 2020, courtesy of Light Work

The exhibition will run through March 4 at Light Work. As Light Work’s galleries remain closed to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic, patrons are encouraged to exhibitions online and participate in online events.

The exhibiting artists are Sam Bennett, Li Chen, Kate Hall, Torian Love, Dan Lyon, Neva Knoll, Jillian McHugh, Natalie Richard, Alana Swaringen, Bailey Thurmond, Sarah Vinette and Ally Walsh.

Gregory Eddi Jones, founding editor and publisher of In the In-Between, served as juror and selected images for Best of Show and Honorable Mention awards. Dan Lyon was awarded Best of Show, and Honorable Mention honors were awarded to Kate Hall, Sarah Vinette and Ally Walsh.

Ally Walsh, “Untitled,” 2020, courtesy of Light Work

“There is a tense anxiety in many of these photographs, and for good reason, given the turmoil of the world in recent past and the uncertainties of the future,” says Jones. “Questions of ‘Who are we?’ ‘Where are we coming from?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ are programmed into nearly all forms of critical photographic inquiry, and the work of these students is no exception.”

“The annual Light Work exhibition is always an important experience for students working toward their senior thesis projects,” says Laura Heyman, associate professor of art photography in the Department of? Transmedia and coordinator of the art photography BFA program. “These projects are yearlong (and sometimes longer), in-depth photographic explorations of a self-chosen topic. In the process of working through their ideas, students often experiment with form and concept, and the projects change considerably over the course of the year.

Kate Hall, “Untitled,” 2020, courtesy of Light Work

Heyman says the Light Work exhibition is both a moment students begin to materialize their research more concretely and a professional opportunity to have their work presented in a setting that’s widely known and well-respected. It’s also a great demonstration of the relationship between the art photography program and Light Work, as students have spent a good part of the past three years there, working in the lab, attending exhibitions and artist lectures, and often working with the artists in residence.

“Over the years, art photography student projects have covered an incredible range of subjects, from deeply personal explorations of self and family, to topics like local environmental disasters and our current political landscape,” says Heyman. “This year is no different, but the Light Work exhibition feels more important than ever as a marker and in recognition of the amazing work our students are doing under very difficult, complicated circumstances.

Sarah Vinette, “Untitled,” 2020, courtesy of Light Work

Jones, this year’s juror, is a photographic artist, writer and publisher living between Philadelphia and New York City. He holds a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology (2010) and an MFA from Visual Studies Workshop (2016). In addition to his photographic practice, Jones has contributed writing to Afterimage, Foam, LensCulture, Paper Journal and Unseen Magazine. He is the founding editor and publisher of In the In-Between, an independent platform for 21st century photography.

Alinka Echeverría (photo courtesy of the artist)

presents “,” a solo exhibition of work by Mexican-British multimedia artist and visual anthropologist Alinka Echeverría. Echeverría’s exhibition will be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work through Dec. 10. Copies of Echeverría’s exhibition catalog, “,” are available in the Light Work shop.

Please note: Light Work’s galleries are currently closed to the general public as part of our ongoing effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, however 黑料不打烊 students, faculty and staff who are cleared to be on campus may visit the exhibitions during gallery hours. We encourage patrons to visit our and to check out our , including an interview with exhibiting artist Alinka Echeverría. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Avenue.

“” is the culmination of artist Alinka Echeverría’s extensive research into the representation of women and femininity since the origins of the medium of photography. “With few exceptions, the place of women was before the lens, not behind it,” she says. As Echeverría immersed herself in the colonial archives of the Nicéphore Nièpce Museum in France, work she embarked on in 2015, the aesthetics of the fetishized and exoticized depiction of women both intrigued and appalled her. Directly referencing the “inventor of photography,” Nicéphore Niépce, Echeverría titles this work more broadly as “Fieldnotes for Nicéphora” (incorporating the “a” at the end to feminize the name that he had adopted for its meaning: victorious)—thereby explicitly reframing the legacy of this white, male pioneer of photography to a feminist and postcolonial perspective.

Light Work is mindful of installing the exhibition amidst an ongoing global pandemic, as we all work to reimagine how physical gallery spaces exist (or don’t) and perhaps expand how works on walls may take on new forms. With that in mind, Echeverría has opened up the ways in which she would normally exhibit photographic work in a gallery. She revisits past collage work innovatively, re-adapting stills from a video piece as large-scale photographic prints and pages from a photobook project, brought to life here as a continuous stream of images wrapping around three of the gallery walls.

?Alinka Echeverría, Extract from “Fieldnotes for Nicephora,” 2015-2020

Echeverría reframes the photographs to examine how she can alter their purpose both through their context and materiality. “As a link between the past and the present, the photographic archive makes time resurface by way of stored visual forms,” Echeverría explains. “In my view, an active reframing allows them to acquire a certain contemporaneity with the new interpretations brought by our contemporary gazes as practitioners and viewers.” Echeverría’s works in “Heroine” are both visually arresting and profoundly thoughtful—urging viewers to investigate the complexities of the photographic object itself as well as the ways in which its creation, reproduction, and distribution has been problematic since the early 1800s.

is a Mexican-British artist and visual anthropologist working in multiple media. She holds a master’s degree in social anthropology from the University of Edinburgh. After working on HIV prevention projects in rural East Africa, she completed a postgraduate degree in photography from the International Center for Photography in New York in 2008. She has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Arles’ Les Rencontres de la Photographie, The California Museum of Photography, Johannesburg Art Gallery, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and Preus Museum (Norway’s National Museum of Photography).

She is the recipient of the 2020 MAST Foundation for Photography Grant and in recent years she has received the BMW Art & Culture Residency at the Nicéphore Niépce Museum, as well as FOAM Museum’s Talent award and the HSBC Prize for Photography. The Lucie Awards voted her International Photographer of the Year and she was a finalist for the Musée de l’Elysée’s Prix Elysée for mid-career artists. Several public collections and institutions hold her work, including BMW Art & Culture France, FOAM Museum, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, LACMA, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée de l’Elysée, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, and the Swiss Foundation of Photography. In 2017 she was the presenter for a three-part series for BBC Four called “The Art That Made Mexico.”

A representation of work from the 2021 Light Work Artists-in-Residence.

Each year, supports at least a dozen emerging and underrepresented artists working in photography and related media with month-long residencies and a total of over $60,000 in support. In addition to being awarded an unrestricted stipend of $5,000, each artist receives access to technical and professional resources. While the COVID-19 pandemic has constrained our ability to physically host artists in 黑料不打烊 this coming year, Light Work has responded innovatively to offer continued support in the form of remote residencies.

With great pleasure, Light Work announces the following : Liz Johnson Artur, Danielle Bowman, Sabiha ?imen, Steven Molina Contreras, Larry Cook, Jeremy Dennis, Odette England, Dionne Lee, Daniel Ramos, Aida Silvestri (in partnership with Autograph ABP), Marion Wilson and Guanyu Xu. This diverse group of lens-based and multimedia artists represents the breadth of important and innovative work in the field today. We’re pleased to again partner with Autograph of London (U.K.) to support the residency of Aida Silvestri. This international arts organization’s sponsorship of one of our artists is the latest in a longstanding collaboration that dates from 1996.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to significantly affect our global artist community, many of whose members are now facing unexpected loss of income and cancellation of exhibitions, grants and residency opportunities. In response to this, Light Work has shifted our residency to a remote format that maintains the same level of robust and intentional artist-guided support.

Citing the effects of the ongoing pandemic, Light Work’s director Shane Lavalette says, “Canceling or postponing our support to emerging and underrepresented artists is simply not an option—in fact, it’s even more essential that we are there for the photographic community right now. Instead, we are deeply committed to being the best international remote residency program for image-makers. In order to do so, we asked artists about the ways in which we can best support their practice during this difficult time, and as a staff we have come together to work to creatively reimagine how we can accomplish this from afar. Despite the geographic distance, we’re thrilled to be able to work closely with this incredible group of artists in 2021.”

The remote residency experience will support artists in developing their artistic practice from their home or designated studio space. In addition to the stipend, artists will benefit from technical, professional and creative support, as well as the extraordinary freedom to determine their own residency’s shape and timing. Our AIR participants can use their month to pursue their projects: photographing, scanning, printing, editing for book projects and working closely with our staff for feedback and conversation. Light Work staff will use the flexibility of virtual support to expand the artist’s networks through discussion groups and educational programming. A special edition of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual presents the work of each Artist-in-Residence with an accompanying commissioned essay. Each Artist-in-Residence also makes a donation of their work that becomes a part of the .

Launched in 1976, this competitive program now usually receives about 1,000 applications annually. Following an international call for submissions, Light Work selects 12 to 15 artists and invites them to 黑料不打烊 for one month to pursue creative projects. To date, more than 500 artists have participated in the Light Work Artist-in-Residence Program, and many have gone on to achieve international acclaim. The artists who receive this distinction embody Light Work’s mission of providing direct artist support to emerging and underrepresented artists working in photography and digital imaging.

Find a list of past Artists-in-Residence online at .

Pay $15 for a single pass or $30 for a season pass to all four lectures (a savings of $30 for package pricing). Light Work Lab membership is not required. Passes are nonrefundable and cannot be exchanged with other Lab classes or workshops. Light Work processes registrations on a first-come, first-served basis.

Courtesy of Hannah Price from “Semaphore Series,” 2018.

The series begins on Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 6 p.m. ET, with photographer and filmmaker Hannah Price. A moderated Q&A follows her remote talk, “Project Less.” Hannah Price’s practice comprises photography and film. She uses her work to document relationships, race politics and misperception. Price has received international recognition for her photo project “City of Brotherly Love” (2009-12), a series on the men who catcalled her on the streets of Philadelphia.

The second lecture is on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 6 p.m. ET, with photographer Irina Rozovsky. Rozovsky believes there is something to photograph most anywhere and considers the camera a third eye. For years, she has made pictures by wandering in far-flung places. She has explored questions of migration, diaspora, rootlessness and personal versus political freedom in Cuba, Israel and former Yugoslavia. Rozovsky is based in Athens, Georgia.

The third lecture is on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 6 p.m. ET, with photographer S. Billie Mandle. Mandle conducts extensive research into the histories and politics of each of her subjects, which include a home for refugees, a hospital for the mentally ill and the California Missions. She will talk about her recent book, “Reconciliation,” made over ten years of photographing confessionals throughout the United States. The book offers a queer perspective on religious spaces as they relate to the fallibility of faith and forgiveness. Mandle is an associate professor of photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

The fourth and final series event is Tuesday, Nov. 16, at 6 p.m. ET with photographer Lesley A. Martin. She will be in conversation with acclaimed photographer Penelope Umbrico. Martin is publisher of The PhotoBook Review, a newsprint journal dedicated to the photobook. Her writing on photography has appeared in publications that include American Photo, Aperture, FOAM?and Lay Flat. She has edited more than 75 photography books and is creative director at Aperture Foundation.

All proceeds from Light Work’s educational programs support their ongoing mission of advocacy for emerging and underrepresented artists working in photography.

Film still from “Homegoing” (2019)

Light Work’s (UVP) will host , Sept. 3-5. In partnership with , the two-day showcase highlights films by 2020 CNY Short Film Competition winners, including? Issack Cintrón, Carlton Daniel, Kathryn Ferentchak and Charles Stulck. The exhibition will be on view at UVP’s outdoor architectural projection site on the facade of the at 401 Harrison St., Thursday through Saturday, from dusk until 11 p.m.

Exhibition patrons visiting the plaza must maintain a social distance of at least 6 feet between individuals at all times, except for groups visiting from the same household. We encourage everyone to wear face masks to safeguard the public health and as an extension of our commitment to help flatten the COVID curve.

“Exhibiting these works is an extension of our commitment to supporting emerging artists,” says Urban Video Project director Anneka Herre. “We are excited to offer this unique public platform to graduates of film programs from area universities, including 黑料不打烊 and SUNY Oswego. We extend our congratulations to this year’s award recipients and wish them success with their future projects and careers.”

is an annual contest open to recent graduates of local colleges and universities and permanent area residents with a background in film or media production. The competition seeks to provide aspiring filmmakers with the resources and training necessary to develop and produce a professional short film in Central New York, which they can submit to festivals for critical and commercial consideration.

By drawing upon the unique cultural and geographic characteristics of the Central New York region, winning filmmakers explore a variety of storytelling perspectives. The Innovation Group of CNY Arts administers the competition, now in its second year of operation. A grant from Empire State Development and the CNY Regional Economic Development Council supports the competition. The CNY Arts in the Windows Program supports the screenings, in turn funded, in part, by the County of Onondaga and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

About the Works

“础辫辞肠补濒测辫蝉别…狈辞飞?”

2019 | 15 min | HD Video

Director: Charles Stulck

Alma Mater: SUNY Oswego

Follow a blossoming romance between two individuals with opposing perspectives on the topic of the end of the world as the filmmaker examines independence, self-preservation, co-existence, identity and fear of humanity.

Filmmaker Charles Stulck graduated from SUNY Oswego with a B.A. in film and creative writing. Shortly thereafter, he ran away from the snowy tundras of Upstate New York to sunny Los Angeles to further his career in the entertainment industry. In LA, Stulck worked as a staff writer for Apelles Entertainment and was mastering coordinator at Deluxe Technicolor and an operations manager at VER. His script was a finalist at Script Pipeline. With his literary manager, Andrew Kersey, Stulck is currently shopping feature scripts around to numerous production companies.

“Homegoing”

2019 | 13 min | HD Video

Director: Carlton Daniel Jr.

Alma Mater: 黑料不打烊

Carlton Daniel Jr.

Junior balances the expectations of working at his father’s funeral home and a night out with friends. When grief intrudes on his closest relationships, Junior must face the full circle of life, forcing him to see the world as it truly is.

Indie filmmaker Carlton Daniel Jr., is a writer, director and producer in Los Angeles, CA. Reimagining a reality free from injustice and oppression, Daniel seeks to correct misconceptions of contemporary Black life as a queer Black artist. In 2016, he earned an M.F.A. in film and dramatic writing from 黑料不打烊. Daniel’s work explores themes of surrealism, sexuality, class and Afro-diasporic identity. His award-winning short, “Monogamish” (2017), screened at more than 20 film festivals including Atlanta, Outfest and Palm Springs. Daniel is currently developing his first feature film.

“Early Bird”

2019 | 14 min | HD Video

Director: Issack Cintrón

Alma Mater: SUNY Oswego

Issack Cintrón

In 1976, Elliot, a stoic cleaner, must tie up a nuisance of a loose end for Ben. However, when Ben reveals this involves some highly sought-after money, a high-stakes treasure hunt ensues.

Issack Cintrón is a filmmaker, musician and founder of You So Stupid Productions. His filmography explores various genres, including romantic-comedy (“Hotline”), social-thriller (“Fruta Extra?a”), neo-Western (“Early Bird”), and adventure (“Eddie, Milo, and The Box”). As a proud Afro-Latino who specializes in screenwriting and directing, Cintrón decries the long-standing absence of people of color in film and television. He works to combat this lack of representation by creating unique, enlightening and riveting stories in which resonant and fully realized characters exist in narratives beyond race, inequality and injustice even as they remain conscious of those issues. Ultimately, Issack is eager to create art regardless of the medium. His latest project is “The Gallery,” a series of short documentaries that profile rising, independent artists.

“I Wish”

2019 | 11 min | HD Video

Director: Kathryn Ferentchak

Alma Mater: 黑料不打烊

Kathryn Ferentchak

Adapted from the 1973 short story by novelist Bill Pronzini, “I Wish” is a tale about David, a curious teenager with Down Syndrome, who escapes his mother’s watchful eye for a few hours to explore a lonely stretch of the Lake Ontario shoreline.

Raised in Colorado, Kathryn Ferentchak will always carry the dynamic scenery of the Rocky Mountains with her. She began working on independent films at 16, and from there, her passion led her to a B.F.A. in film from 黑料不打烊 and an exciting career in the entertainment industry. Her directorial debut, “Osiris” (2017), did very well on the festival circuit, taking several awards.

Light Work is again offering its full line of services to artists, including printing, scanning and retouching. Visit for a complete list of service rates and stock papers. In addition, Light Work is extending all lab memberships that were valid when it closed its doors, as well as offering free service memberships for new and returning clients.

However, Light Work is not yet open for visitors to the facility for do-it-yourself printing and scanning. Though the number of new COVID-19 cases in 黑料不打烊 and across the state is low, Light Work is proceeding cautiously regarding a physical reopening of the Lab and exhibition spaces to the public and will wait for clearance from New York State and 黑料不打烊.

Over the period the lab was closed, the lab team instituted cleaning routines for the facility and enacted safety protocols such as protective partitions, social distancing signage, hand sanitizer stations and free distribution of masks to staff.

“We have spent the last month preparing and recalibrating, testing out new materials and implementing social distancing rules to make our space safer for our staff,” says Light Work lab manager Dan Boardman. “We are ready for your printing, scanning and retouching inquiries. It is very rewarding for us to work with artists from all around the world, and we are looking forward to helping you with your next project.”

Light Work, located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at 黑料不打烊 (CMAC). For more information, visit, call 315.443.1300 or email info@lightwork.org, and follow on , and .

Light Work has received a federal CARES Act grant to help the nonprofit, artist-run organization weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded a $50,000 grant as part of the . Light Work is one of 855 organizations that the NEA selected from 3,100 applicants nationwide that requested $157 million with $45 million available in direct assistance. The non-matching funds support staff salaries, fees for artists or contractual personnel, and facilities costs.

“The NEA has been an important funding partner with Light Work for nearly 50 years,” says Jeffrey Hoone, Light Work’s executive director. “We are extremely grateful for this grant as we continue our core mission to support emerging and underrecognized artists during this challenging time.”

The CARES Act recognizes the nonprofit arts industry as an essential sector of America’s economy. The NEA awarded funds to nonprofit arts organizations across the country to help these entities and their employees endure the economic hardships caused by the forced closure of their operations due to the spread of COVID-19. The grants support exemplary projects in artist communities, arts education, dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literary arts, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting and multidisciplinary works, theater and visuals arts.

During the past five months, Light Work has navigated the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic-related closure and tallied numerous successes. This emergency grant helps Light Work continue to deliver on a 48-year legacy of advocacy through exhibitions, an awarding-winning publication (Contact Sheet), a state-of-the-art community-access digital services lab and a permanent collection comprising more than 4,000 photo-related objects and images. Light Work remains devoted to serving the artists and the community in meaningful and safe ways. Staff and board eagerly anticipate reopening with new exhibitions, online educational opportunities and remote print services that include safety protocols.

“At this challenging moment for arts organizations across the country, Light Work is extremely grateful to receive support from the NEA as part of the CARES Act,” says Light Work Director Shane Lavalette. “This grant will offset some of the pandemic’s financial impacts and ensure that we can continue to provide artists with support they need through this difficult and uncertain time.”

Like many cities across the nation, 黑料不打烊 is poised for a reimagining of arts engagement within its sites. Arts and culture are vital parts of the city’s dynamic economy. In the Greater 黑料不打烊 area, arts and culture generate more than $130 million in economic activity; support more than 5,000 full-time jobs; provide $110 million in household income; and deliver $20 million in local and state government revenue. This NEA funding helps support those jobs and nonprofit organizations during this time of great need.

“All of us at the National Endowment for the Arts are keenly aware that arts organizations across the country are hurting, struggling and trying to survive. Our supply of funding does not come close to meeting the demand for assistance,” says NEA chair Mary Anne Carter.

Congress established the NEA in 1965 as the independent federal agency whose funding and support allow Americans to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the skills in every community across America. Visit ? to learn more.

About Light Work

Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media, located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊. Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours of the exhibitions and facility and to attend gallery talks. Limited metered parking is available on Waverly Avenue and paid parking is available in Booth Parking Garage. Light Work thanks 黑料不打烊 and Robert B. Menschel and Vital Projects, as well as the Andy Warhol Foundation, CNY Arts, the Central New York Community Foundation, JGS (Joy of Giving Something Inc.), the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the subscribers to Contact Sheet for their ongoing support of its programs. Light Work is a member of the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at 黑料不打烊.

Follow Light Work on , and . For general information, visit, call 315.443.1300 or email info@lightwork.org.

With the contributions of Black photographers and photojournalist allies, UVP’s act of solidarity had appeared each night for more than three weeks, offering viewers on the plaza an opportunity to witness the passions, frustrations and determination driving the protest movement in 黑料不打烊.

UVP extends its appreciation to the many photographers and artists who made images of the marches, rallies and actions organized by Last Chance For Change, Raha 黑料不打烊 and YouthCuseBLM. The photographs by , , Kollina Dacko, , and chronicled the protesters’ unwavering commitment to condemn and root out police violence, systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence.

Those who journeyed to the museum’s plaza provided powerful feedback that reaffirms art as an indomitable tool in challenging injustice and inequity. “We appreciate the work of the photographers covering the movement in 黑料不打烊 and the willingness to have a solidarity display,” says Rannette Releford, director of , which hears complaints about police misconduct. “This was a perfect example of how important this movement is to our community and the choices an organization can make to show support. We appreciate being showcased in the ‘In Solidarity’ installation because accountability and transparency are necessary to improve relations. You cannot have one without the other, and for far too long, neither has been a top priority to the 黑料不打烊 Police Department.”

At the launch of the collaborative project, UVP Director Anneka Herre spoke of the location’s importance: “It is not a coincidence that UVP’s? site is proximate to where many of the protests are happening along the downtown law enforcement and legal corridor. This corridor of civic buildings was created through an urban renewal program that displaced a population of Black citizens who are also disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system. It is incumbent upon us to use this site in ways that amplify the voices of those who are doing the difficult work of making change and to add our own voice to that call.”

For those who did not have the opportunity to see the installation in person at the Everson plaza, “In Solidarity” has been added to Light Work’s 2020-21 exhibition calendar. It will be on view in the Hallway Gallery at Light Work in late fall. The show will run concurrently with Matthew Connor’s exhibition in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery.

Please note that at this time Light Work is closed temporarily to the public and all scheduled opening receptions and artist talks have been canceled as part of Light Work’s commitment to helping flatten the COVID-19 curve.

About the Urban Video Project

a program of Light Work in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County. This outdoor architectural projection site offers public presentation of film, video and moving image arts, using cutting-edge technology to bring art of the highest caliber to 黑料不打烊. It is one of the few projects in the United States dedicated to ongoing public projections and adds a new chapter to Central New York’s legacy as a major birthplace of video art.

Using a large permanently installed projector and all-weather sound system, UVP’s outdoor architectural projection site on the north fa?ade of the Everson Museum of Art transforms the adjoining Onondaga County Community Plaza into a massive, year-round video installation every Thursday through Saturday night. For general information, visit, call 315.443.1369 or email info@urbanvideoproject.com.

The Light Work Grants in Photography are part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography within a 50-mile radius of 黑料不打烊.

The Hallway and Kathellen O. Ellis Galleries at Light Work are temporarily closed to the public as part of the organization’s commitment to helping flatten the COVID-19 curve. Those interested can visit , check out its and tune into the recently launched Today’s Artists. On Photography. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊, New York.

Established in 1975, Light Work Grants program is one of the longest-running photography fellowships in the country. Each recipient receives a $3,000 stipend, exhibits their work at Light Work, and appears in Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual. This year’s judges were Russell Lord (photo historian and Freeman Family Curator of Photographs at the New Orleans Museum of Art), Jacqui Palumbo (freelance editor, contributor to Artsy and writer and producer for “CNN Style”), and Aaron Turner (photographer, educator, Light Work AIR in 2018, and coordinator of the Center for Photographers of Color at the University of Arkansas).

A series of 90-degree days spill into the comfort of night as the high temperatures bake the city of 黑料不打烊. Carla and her son Jaxiel “Che Che” seek relief with an evening swim. Photo by Ben Cleeton

Ben Cleeton is a photographer based in 黑料不打烊. Cleeton graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2015 with a degree in photojournalism. His photographs have appeared in The New York Times in such stories as “Here’s Life Among the Ghosts” and “Getting Hockey Referees Ready for the Big Leagues,” and online in Black artist series: “Joshua Rashaad McFadden in The Undefeated.” His solo exhibition in 2015 at the Community Folks Art Center in 黑料不打烊 was titled “Green eyes: el Viejo.” Cleeton’s “Hesperus is Rising” won Best Music Video at the Central New York Film Festival in 2018.

Cleeton says, “In this project, I assemble stories offering a counter-narrative to one-dimensional portrayals of a once-thriving neighborhood now on the city’s margins. The images comprising this project capture sacred realities that both embody and transcend the mundane everyday lives of people from the Town. The Town, arguably, represents the invisible 黑料不打烊 that outsiders like myself don’t see. As a privileged white man working in a community of color, I am indebted to people who have invited a stranger into their lives. These vibrant pockets constitute The Town. My art is nothing without them.”

Photo by Christine Elfman

Christine Elfman is a visual artist who lives and works in Ithaca. She received a B.F.A. from Cornell University and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited her work at Gallery Wendi Norris (San Francisco), Handwerker Gallery (Ithaca College), Photofairs San Francisco, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, University of the Arts (Philadelphia), and Zona Maco in Mexico City. Her work has appeared in Der Greif, Humble Arts Foundation, Photograph Magazine, The Photo Review, SF Weekly, and The San Francisco Chronicle. She is represented by Euqinom Gallery in San Francisco, California.

Elfman says, “Photographs embody the tension between fixing and fading especially well. While we tend to assume that they freeze time, photographs actually show us how impossible it is to ever fully capture something. My photographic work explores the temporal wane of objects, images, and memory. Color slips from the surface of paper, subjects become shadows, recognition fades into lore. Using the anthotype process, my images develop slowly: sitting outside for a month, the sun bleaches paper saturated with light-sensitive plant dyes. Once complete, these unfixable photographs slowly disappear, as they continue to fade in the light that we need to see them. When paired with fixed silver gelatin and inkjet prints, the images emphasize a tension between the archival impulse, ephemerality of photography, and the subjects themselves.”

Artwork by Hans Gindlesberger

Hans Gindlesberger is an artist whose work spans photography, video, installation and new media. He lives and teaches in Binghamton. He earned a B.F.A. from Bowling Green State University in 2004 and an M.F.A. in photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2006. His solo exhibitions include CEPA (Buffalo), Foundry Art Centre (St. Louis), Galleri Image (Denmark), and Gallery 44 (Toronto). His participation in group shows includes 516 ARTS (Albuquerque), Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (Buffalo), Humble Arts Foundation (New York City), IHC Platform (University of California Santa Barbara), Jen Bekman Projects (New York), Kunstvlaai 6 (Amsterdam) and Richmond Art Center (Western Michigan University).

Gindlesberger says, “Blank______Photographs is a constellation of projects that look imaginatively at the radical shifts in photography’s materiality. In these projects, I seek to invert the hierarchy of visual and tactile that we expect from a photographic image. In subverting expectations and offering an alternative presentation of photographs, this work suggests new possibilities for what is ‘photographic.’ Though 1.5 trillion photographs come into being annually, most exist immaterially as pixels on screens. Re-focusing attention on the physicality of photographs is both elegiac and celebrates photography’s ability to reconfigure and reinvent itself continually.”

Amera, a young Yazidi bride gets ready for her wedding celebration inside of a makeshift beauty parlor within the Bajed Kandala displacement camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. Currently home to over 9,000 Yazidis, those living in the Bajed Kandala camp do their best to live “normally,” celebrating weddings, birthdays and religious holidays as they are able. This image was made on December 29, 2018. Photo by Maranie Staab

Artists are nothing if not adaptable, especially when facing challenges. In that spirit of resilience, creativity and community, presents the “,” featuring work by photography students in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

In response to concerns around COVID-19, Light Work has closed to the public and canceled all scheduled on-site exhibitions, tours and artist talks until further notice. This exhibition can be viewed online at .

This exhibition comprises more than 30 thematically diverse photographs by Newhouse’s multimedia photography students. The exhibition represents various approaches to photographic practice and technique and showcases the range of images that today’s students are producing.

The exhibiting artists are Michelle Abercrombie, Cher Beckles, Zoe Davis, Renee Deemer, Haoyu Deng, Crystal Fang, Sofia Faram, Madeline Foreman, Hannah Frankel, Chelsea Hurd, Joshua Ives, Adam Kassman, Zach Krahmer, Jordan Larson, Sam Lee, Dan Lyon, Lauren Miller, Paul Nelson, Kai Nguyen, Laura Oliverio, Jessica Ruiz, Liam Sheehan, Maranie Staab, Doug Steinman and Jessica Stewart.

Journalist Michael Kamber, who founded the Bronx Documentary Center, served as juror and selected images for Best of Show and Honorable Mention awards. Maranie Staab took Best of Show and Honorable Mentions went to Hannah Frankel, Joshua Ives and Sam Lee.

“This was a really tough group to jury: the work was beautifully created, smart and full of emotion. There were a half dozen photos that I went back and forth over trying to decide the winner. However, my background is in journalism and this dictated my final choices. For the first prize, I chose the photo of the Yazidi bride. The photo is an extremely powerful representation of all the Yazidis have been through—you can see the trauma and sadness in the bride’s face. Still, there is resilience, power, and a hint of anger to the moment as well. The composition—the bride surrounded by empty dresses—adds to the photo’s emotion. I also liked that the photo was captioned and gave me the crucial context I needed,” Kamber stated.

Photo by Sam Lee

“Hannah Frankel’s aging biker is beautifully seen—the photographer moving in close for a telling detail in wonderful light and shadow. As is often the case, this gives as much information—and makes a more striking photo—than a full-length portrait might. As for the chair in the storefront from Joshua Ives, I’m particularly drawn to social landscapes and I feel this photo is just such an image, with a strong, layered composition and excellent use of color that speaks of the America in which we live. Sam Lee’s photo of the young woman laying next to the man intrigues and strikes me on several levels. It is the type of deeply psychological portrait—with a wonderful composition—that leaves me wanting to know much more of their story: a very strong photo with great use of light, shadow and shape. As I said, the selection of 30 photos that I saw, was very strong and marked, in particular, by an understanding of light, and of the moment. These are the elements that make a great photo—they are missing in much of the work I see these days and it is great to see them in evidence at Light Work.”

Kamber has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. Between 2002 and 2012, Kamber worked for The New York Times, covering international conflicts, including those in Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia and Sudan. He has also worked as a writer and videographer for the Times, which twice nominated his work for the Pulitzer Prize. Nearly every major news magazine in the United States and Europe has published his photos, as well as many newspapers. In 2011, Kamber founded the , a space dedicated to education and social change through photography and film.

Exhibiting artist Pacifico Silano contemplates pain and photography’s role in the struggle for queer
visibility while celebrating enduring love, compassion, and community

Stay Connected! Visit ? online to see … , a solo exhibition of photographs by Brooklyn-based artist Pacifico Silano. Through the appropriation of photographs from vintage gay pornography magazines, Silano creates colorful collages that explore print culture and the histories of the LGBTQ+ community. His large-scale works evoke strength and sexuality while acknowledging the underlying repression and trauma that marginalized individuals experience. Born at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Silano lost his uncle to complications from HIV. “After he died,” says Silano, “his memory was erased by my family due to the shame of his sexuality and the stigma of HIV/AIDS around that time period.”

Silano set out to create art that reconciles that loss and erasure. His exhibition somberly contemplates pain and photography’s role in the struggle for queer visibility, while celebrating enduring love, compassion and community. Copies of Silano’s exhibition catalog, are available to collectors in the Light Work Shop.

Works from Pacifico Silano’s show The Eyelids Has Its Storms

… borrows its title from a Frank O’Hara poem. O’Hara’s musings and observations about everyday queer life inspired Silano’s artistic practice. “The eyelid has its storms,” the poem begins. “There is the opaque fish-scale green of it after swimming in the sea and then suddenly wrenching violence, strangled lashed, and a barbed wire of sand falls onto the shore.” O’Hara’s deeply visual poem, like Silano’s work, evokes duality—in memory, in the present and future, shimmering beauty and umbral violence often occur at once.

In collaging, Silano fragments, obscures and layers images that he has rephotographed from these magazines. He reassembles and ultimately recontextualizes these images, removing the overtly explicit original content. “These new pictures-within-pictures are silent witnesses that allude to absence and presence,” says Silano. He sees them as stand-in memorials, both for the now-missing models as well as those who originally consumed their images. Silano meditates on the meaning of the images and tearsheets that he collects over time. What continually excites him is precisely the? “slipperiness” of representation and meaning in photography as our culture shifts. “The lens that we read [images] through today gives them new context and meaning,” he observes. “In another 30 or 40 years, they might very well mean something completely different.”

About the Artist

Pacifico Silano

Pacifico Silano is a lens-based artist born in Brooklyn. He has an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts. His group shows include the Bronx Museum, Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City, Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, and Tacoma Art Museum. His solo shows include Baxter ST@CCNY, The Bronx Museum, Fragment Gallery in Moscow, Rubber-Factory, and Stellar Projects. Aperture, Artforum, and The New Yorker have reviewed his work. Silano’s awards include the Aaron Siskind Foundation’s Individual Photographer’s Fellowship, Finalist for the Aperture Foundation Portfolio Prize, and First Prize at Amsterdam’s Pride Photo Awards. His work is in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. Silano participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in 2016. Tune into

General Information?

The Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery is temporarily closed to the public as part of our commitment to helping flatten the COVID-19 curve. All scheduled receptions and artist talks are canceled until further notice. We encourage you to visit , check out our and tune into the recently launched Today’s Artists. On Photography.

Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Avenue, 黑料不打烊, New York, 13224. Follow Light Work on , , and . For general information, please visit, call (315) 443-1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Find the on the most popular streaming services! Light Work will also move to more streaming platforms over the coming days. Just search for our podcast on your preferred service and subscribe!

The podcast platform is quickly becoming a staple in new virtual spaces with an urgent charge to offer creative respite to quarantined people and others. Spaces that provide a means to create community, reflect and share. The growing scale and diversity of podcast entries suggest that art and cultural institutions are recognizing an opportunity, if not a need, to tell their stories through more advanced— and widely accessible—channels than ever before. Though COVID-19 has put the kibosh on the intimacy of two people in a recording studio with a microphone, technology also alleviates the necessity of being in the same physical space. Podcast service platforms offer a multitude of ways to produce quality content while still adhering to social distancing regulations.

“We see the Light Work podcast launch as an extension of the organization’s long-standing commitment
to generating greater exposure for emerging and underrepresented artists,” said Cjala Surratt, who
coordinates communication at Light Work. “We are thrilled to join the growing number of arts and
cultural organizations that are finding creative ways to share artists’ work with their patrons and
蝉耻辫辫辞谤迟别谤蝉.”

The launch features with artists whom Light Work has worked with on exhibitions over the past seven years. The first interview in the series highlights current Kathleen O. Ellis gallery exhibiting artist . The series will release at least four new episodes each year, along with other special audio content. Tune in to listen to this incredible group of artists: George Awde, Justyna Badach, Robert Benjamin, Gideon Barnett, Michael Bühler-Rose, John Edmonds, For Freedoms, Todd Gray, Karolina Karlic, Jason Lazarus, Nicola Lo Calzo, Mary Mattingly, Aspen Mays, Raymond Meeks, Jackie Nickerson, Kristine Potter, Keisha Scarville, Pacifico Silano, Xaviera Simmons, Miki Soejima, Wendy Red Star, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Letha Wilson, Stanley Wolukau- Wanambwa and Suné Woods.

To support the development of the podcast, consider purchasing a limited-edition print, signed book, and Contact Sheet subscription from (note: shipments will take longer than usual) or by directly to Light Work. If you can’t offer financial support right now, simply help them by to the podcast with friends or on your social media pages to expand the Light Work audience.

Sabrina Toto, Untitled, 2019

announced the exhibition of photographs by seniors from the art photography program in the Department of Transmedia in the The exhibition runs through Saturday, March 7, at Light Work, with a reception with the exhibiting artists to be held on Thursday, Jan. 30, from 5-7 p.m.

The reception is free and open to the public, and includes refreshments. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1-9 p.m. We invite educators and community groups to schedule of exhibitions with our curatorial staff. The gallery closes on 黑料不打烊 and Federal holidays. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Avenue in 黑料不打烊. Visit for information about parking and directions to the galleries.

The exhibiting artists are Nathan Baldry, Andrea Bodah, Kali Bowden, Molly Coletta, Laura D’Amelio, Ohemaa Dixon, Jordyn Gelb, Charlotte Howard, George Lambert, Samantha Lane, Meilin Luzadis, Timmy Ok, Jamie Pershing, Duke Plofker, Eliot Raynes, Scott Robinson and Sabrina Toto.

Laura D’Amelio, Spaulding, 2019

Jon Feinstein, independent curator and co-founder of Humble Arts Foundation, served as juror and selected images for Best of Show and Honorable Mention awards. Laura D’Amelio took Best of Show and Honorable Mention went to Timmy Ok.

Feinstein notes, “It was an honor to review thesis work by seniors from the art photography program at 黑料不打烊. While I didn’t have the opportunity to see it develop over the course of the year, diving in makes me want to know more, to spend more time with each series, to see it continue to grow and evolve. The photographs in this exhibition demonstrate a thoughtful range of approaches, from Honorable Mention Timmy Ok’s mysterious yet empathetic portrait of his brother to Sabrina Toto’s sad yet optimistic photos of her newly divorced parents. I selected Laura D’Amelio as Best in Show. D’Amelio photographs objects that she finds in repo’d cars, whether it’s discarded family photos or a weathered Spalding Basketball, transforms them into living portraits. Congratulations to all of the photographers on their thoughtful and sophisticated work.”

Laura Heyman, associate professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia, spoke to the importance of the annual collaboration, saying, “Art photography’s close partnership with Light Work benefits students in so many ways. All of our students become members, with access to Light Work Labs and their exceptionally skilled staff. On any given day, students may be working alongside major international artists, forging important relationships and learning how to print, edit and exhibit work by watching working artists do the same thing. Students get to test these skills in the annual TRM Light Work exhibition, which is not only the first exhibition for many art photography majors, but also an important learning opportunity for them. In addition to giving students the space to imagine how their thesis work might develop over the following months, the TRM Annual show introduces their work to their peers, the local community and the renowned curators and critics who jury the exhibition. Light Work is an invaluable intellectual, professional and technical resource for art photography students, providing them with an extraordinary and unique range of real-world skills and experiences.”

Timmy Ok, Flower, 2019

Many students work with Light Work throughout their undergraduate careers and become an integral source of the energy, passion and excitement that defines the organization. The Light Work staff and community congratulate all of these young artists on their accomplishments and wish them the best in their bright futures in the field of photography.

The emphasizes creativity, intellectual development and the acquisition of skills to build professional, technical and visual abilities within the broad and varied field of photography. Art photography students exhibit their work nationally and establish careers working with art galleries, advertising, educational institutions, fashion, magazines, museums, photo studios and other visual industries.

“Trap and Lean-to 14” by Dionne Lee.

is presenting “,” a solo exhibition of photographs by Oakland-based artist Dionne Lee, through March 7. A multimedia artist, Lee employs video, collage, photography and sculpture to explore American landscape and her place within its complex history.

As an African American woman, she sees the natural world as a place of refuge and tranquility as well as one of racial violence, danger, and vulnerability. More broadly, her work acknowledges the terror of climate change, mass migration and humanity’s ongoing drama of survival. Duality is a frequent feature of Lee’s work, as she notes that “two things can be true at once.”

A reception and gallery talk with Lee will take place on Thursday, Jan. 30, at 6 p.m. in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. Signed copies of the exhibition catalog, Contact Sheet 205, will be available to collectors after the talk. The reception is free and open to the public; refreshments will be available.

Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 1 to 9 p.m. Light Work closes on all 黑料不打烊 and federal holidays. Light Work is located in the at 316 Waverly Ave., 黑料不打烊.

Lee’s process is both organic and intuitive. She often manipulates found imagery in the darkroom. The exhibition contains many fragments of photographs from her many wilderness survival manuals and vintage color magazines that contain majestic views of “the great outdoors.” The survival manuals offer detailed, step-by-step directions on building a lean-to or foraging for food and water. Lee has become adept at these skills herself, thus reclaiming her connection to the earth and salvaging nearly lost ancestral skills and knowledge. As the earth continues to shift beneath our feet, Lee asks what determines survival: not just who has what, but who knows how.

Dionne Lee

Lee’s darkroom practice conveys the same sense of intervention and disruption. With a forceful irreverence for the sacred silver gelatin printing process, she deconstructs photography itself. Lee draws with graphite directly on prints before and after she exposes them. She pulls negatives across the scanning bed to create painterly abstractions. She tears, crumples, solarizes and double-exposes fragments of information, challenging photography’s purpose and authorship as well as any idealized and colonialist view of the earth.

Related events

Light Work’s (UVP) is presenting a special short exhibition of Lee’s work to accompany her solo exhibition. Lee’s piece “” grapples with ideas of power, agency, the fragility and resilience of land, and racial histories. In her work, she considers the complications and dual legacies that exist within representations of American landscape. This work is displayed at UVP’s outdoor architectural projection site on the’s north facade from Jan. 29–Feb. 1.

About the artist

Dionne Lee, born in New York City and based in Oakland, received an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts in 2017. In New York City, she has exhibited her work at Aperture Foundation and the school of the International Center of Photography. Her exhibitions throughout the Bay Area include Aggregate Space, Interface, LAND AND SEA and the San Francisco Arts Commission. In 2016, the Anderson Ranch Arts Center awarded her a graduate fellowship and she received the Barclay Simpson Award. She was Art Forum Magazine’s Critics’ Pick in 2017 and 2019. In 2019, she was Artist in Residence at Woodstock’s Center for Photography and a finalist for the SFMoMa SECA and San Francisco Artadia awards. She currently teaches photography at the San Francisco Art Institute and Stanford University.

Exhibition catalogue

Contact Sheet 205 includes an essay by Mary Lee Hodgens. The catalog is available for purchase online in the Light Work shop at .

Kelly Gallagher

Light Work’s is hosting a screening of “Marlin said to me: ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’” a feature-length episode of the TV show and a post-screening conversation on Thursday, Nov. 21, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. in the Everson Museum of Art’s Hosmer Auditorium.

Curated by feminist filmmakers Jennifer Reeder, Kelly Sears and Lauren Wolkstein, “Marlin said to me” is a mashup of short films created in the aftermath of 2017’s revelations about Harvey Weinstein and the subsequent #MeToo movement.

Urban Video Project Director Anneka Herre will moderate the post-screening Q&A with experimental animator and filmmaker , assistant professor of film in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ .

The founder of Purple Riot Studios, Gallagher has been producing for the past decade original and colorful handcrafted films and animations that explore overlooked histories and movements of resistance and perseverance. Her award-winning films and commissioned animations have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the Black Maria Film Festival, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, The National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Smithsonian Institution and the Sundance Film Festival.

Thursday’s event is free and open to the public. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible. Light refreshments will be provided before and after the program.

The screening is held in conjunction with the exhibition “Hold/Release,” featuring short experimental works by Reeder, Sears and Wolkstein that investigate the female body through tropes and traps of cinematic production. The exhibition is on view at UVP’s architectural projection site on the Everson Museum of Art Plaza through Dec. 21, every Thursday through Saturday, from dusk to 11 p.m.

The New York State Council on the Arts has provided funding for the exhibition with the support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The artist’s talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Transmedia.

Filmmaker Jennifer Reeder, director of “Knives and Skin.”

Where is Carolyn Harper? The coming of age thriller “ () by award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Reeder will be presented by Light Work’s Urban Video Project (UVP) on Thursday, Nov. 7, from 5:30–8 p.m. The free indoor screening will take place at Watson Hall Auditorium in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center.

A post-screening conversation and Q&A with Reeder will be moderated by Anneke Herre, instructor of transmedia core in the Department of Transmedia and director of . The auditorium is wheelchair accessible and CART services are available by reservation (please request by Nov. 1 if needed) by calling 315.443.1369 or emailing info@urbanvideoproject.com. Light refreshments will be served before and after the program. The screening, artist talk and Q&A are free and open to the public.

Paid parking is available in the Booth Garage at the intersection of Comstock and Waverly Avenues.? Metered parking is also available in front of Bird Library, on Walnut Avenue and on Comstock Avenue. For additional parking information, .

The Plot (Thickens)?

A missing girl shakes up a small town, join us to follow the investigation. Steeped in macabre humor and queer feminist attitude, Reeder’s “” follows the investigation of a young girl’s disappearance in the rural Midwest, led by an inexperienced local sheriff. Unusual coping techniques develop among the traumatized small-town residents with each new secret revealed. The ripple of fear and suspicion destroys some relationships and strengthens others. The teenagers experience an accelerated loss of innocence while their parents are forced to confront adulthood failures. This mystical teen noir presents coming of age as a lifelong process and examines the profound impact of grief.

The main characters’ girlhood is a place of transcendence but also transgression in a movie that embraces its own style. Reeder’s teen noir draws on a rich cultural DNA of genre classics, from the surreal horror of David Lynch to high school classics like John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” and Mark Waters’?“Mean Girls,” giving them a decidedly feminist spin. Reeder also peppers the drama with female empowerment messages and subtle homages to feminist icons including Angela Davis, Yoko Ono and Chantal Akerman.

About the Filmmaker

Reeder constructs personal fiction films about relationships, trauma and coping. Her award-winning narratives borrow from a range of forms, including after-school specials, amateur music videos and magical realism. These films have shown around the world, including at the Sundance Film Festival, Berlinale, the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, South by Southwest, the Wexner Center and in The Whitney Biennial. She is the recipient of Rockefeller and Creative Capital grants. She currently teaches in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

This screening, held in conjunction with the exhibition , features short experimental works by Reeder, Kelly Sears and Lauren Wolkstein investigating the female body through tropes and traps of cinematic production. The exhibition will be on view at Light Work UVP’s architectural projection venue on the Plaza from Nov. 7-Dec. 21, 2019, every Thursday through Saturday from dusk to 11 p.m.

Also in conjunction with the exhibition, a special indoor screening of a program curated by the three artists titled “?will screen on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 6 p.m. inside the Everson Museum with participating filmmaker Kelly Gallagher in attendance.

Sponsors

This exhibition was supported by the ?with the support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The artist lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

About Urban Video Project

a program of Light Work in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County, is an outdoor architectural projection site dedicated to the public presentation of film, video and moving image arts. It is one of the few projects in the United States dedicated to ongoing public projections and adds a new chapter to Central New York’s legacy as one of the birthplaces of video art, using cutting-edge technology to bring art of the highest caliber to 黑料不打烊.

Using a large venue projector and permanently installed all-weather sound system, UVP’s outdoor architectural projection site on the north fa?ade of the iconic Everson Museum of Art transforms the adjoining Onondaga County Community Plaza into a year-round massive video installation every Thursday through Saturday night. For general information, please visit, call 315.443.1369 or email info@urbanvideoproject.com.

Lali Khalid

The Light Work Grants in Photography are part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography. The Grants in Photography exhibition will take place Aug. 26 – Oct. 17 in the Light Work Hallway Gallery.

The reception is on Friday, Oct. 11, from 5-7:30 p.m. Nicola Lo Calzo’s “Bundles of Wood” is concurrently on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center. Both events offer refreshments and are free and open to the public.

Established in 1975, Light Work Grants is one of the longest-running photography fellowship programs in the country. Each recipient receives a $3,000 award, exhibits their work at Light Work and appears in “Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual.” This year’s judges were Kimberly Drew (writer, curator, founder Black Contemporary Art), Eve Lyons (photo editor, The New York Times), and David Oresick (executive director, Silver Eye Center for Photography).

Trevor Clement is a visual artist, musician and performance artist based in 黑料不打烊, who uses photography with book art, installation, and sound. His photographic style opposes the cleanliness and simplicity of Western fine art photography by using heavy film grain, dust and a modernized take on William Klein’s “technique of no taboos.” The do-it-yourself ethic, and the antisocial, violent and sub-capitalist character of noise and hardcore-punk music all play a major role in Clement’s thinking about visual art. He has contributed to music projects such as “Faith Void,” “Hunted Down” and “White Guilt” and was a major force in BADLANDS, an underground music and art space for all ages in 黑料不打烊. He was a Light Work Grant recipient in 2014, has shown his work across New York State, and exhibited at the Fotofanziner Fotobokfestival in Oslo (Norway), the NoFound Photo Festival in Paris, and the San Francisco Center for the Book. Recently, Clement has focused on producing ‘zines of his photos of professional wrestling and an audio interpretation of Gregory Halpern’s book, ZZYZX.

Lali Khalid addresses landscape and abstraction through documentary photography. Khalid uses her work as a tool to explore themes of diaspora, identity, family, and home in her own life and the lives of people she photographs. Her images depict and document cultural and private conflicts, as well as emotive effects of natural light, through quiet, narrative allusions. She holds a B.F.A. in printmaking from the National College of Arts in Lahore (2003) and an M.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute (2009) where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She has shown her work in many galleries throughout Europe, Pakistan and the US. ?She is currently an assistant professor of media arts, sciences and studies at Ithaca College.

Reka Reisinger is a visual and historical archivist living in Burdett, New York. Reisinger graduated from Bard College (2004) and holds an M.F.A. in photography from the Yale University School of Art. Reisinger was born in Budapest, Hungary, and returns frequently to photograph her homeland, the central focus of her work. Driven by a sense of urgency to collect visual cultural artifacts, she used her photographic practice to evoke the atmosphere she experienced during her frequent childhood visits to Hungary during the early post-communist era. Reisinger creates a sense of humor in her work while posing more profound questions about cultural identity during upheaval. She has participated in many group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including The Camera Club of New York, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Lisa Ruyter Gallery in Vienna (Austria), the Midlands Art Center in Birmingham (UK), The Sculpture Center in Long Island City and the Swiss Institute in New York City.

“Bundles of Wood,” a solo exhibition by Italian photographer Nicola Lo Calzo, documents the rich local history of the Underground Railroad in Central New York.

presents ,” a solo exhibition by Italian photographer Nicola Lo Calzo, which documents the rich local history of the Underground Railroad in Central New York. Since 2010, Lo Calzo has traversed Atlantic coastal areas to research buried memories of the African Diaspora. “Bundles of Wood” is on view at Light Work, Aug. 26 to Oct. 17. A gallery reception will be held Friday, Oct. 11, 5-7 p.m.

Lo Calzo will visit campus for an artist talk and conversation with playwright Kyle Bass at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 11. Lo Calzo and Bass will explore the intersection of .” Lo Calzo’s lecture is part of the series, whose theme is Silence.

Light Work is located in the . The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Lo Calzo was born in Torino, Italy, in 1979 and now lives and works in Paris, West Africa and the Caribbean. For seven years he has engaged in a photographic project about the memories of the slave trade. This ambitious, still ongoing project includes documentation of the descendants of the African diaspora in America, Cuba, Haiti, Suriname, the Caribbean, and West Africa.

In his artist’s statement, Lo Calzo asks, “How is it possible that the world organized the social, political, and moral consensus around the slave trade for four centuries, and how is it possible to erase this tragedy from the collective memory of Western countries and even from textbooks? Have the memories of slavery, discarded by history, survived to this day and, if so, in what forms and in what places? How do these memories, repressed by some and preserved by others, define our everyday relationships, our perception, and the place of everyone in society?”

In September 2017, Lo Calzo participated in a monthlong residency at Light Work, during which he researched and documented Central New York’s own rich history of the Underground Railroad. “Bundles of Wood” is the resulting photo essay, tracing a clandestine network active up to the American Civil War. In Lo Calzo’s photographs, echoes of slavery linger and reverberate across the centuries. Slaves and “conductors” on the Underground Railroad used the phrase “bundles of wood” as a secret code to communicate “incoming fugitives were expected.”

Lo Calzo has exhibited his photographs widely in museums, art centers and festivals, most notably the Afriques Capitales in Lille, the Macaal in Marakesh, the Musee des Confluences in Lyon, the National Alinari Museum of Photography in Florence, and Tropen Museum in Amsterdam. Many public and private collections hold his work, such as the Alinari Archives in Florence, the National Library of France in Paris and Pinacoteca Civica in Monza Tropen Museum in Amsterdam.

Kehrer has published three of Lo Calzo’s books: “Regla” (2017), “Obia” (2015), and “Inside Niger” (2012). He is also a contributor to the international press, including Internazionale, Le Monde, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2018 Lo Calzo received the Cnap Grant and a nomination for the Prix Elysee 2019-2020.

The artist lecture and conversation was funded in part by the .

In conjunction with the exhibition “Bundles of Wood,” the will host a lunch time lecture with Lo Calzo on Thursday, Oct. 10, noon to 12:30 p.m. Lo Calzo will discuss his research, artistic practice and photographing the rich local history of the Underground Railroad during his residency at Light Work in 2017.

Andy Warhol

The has honored Light Work with a $100,000 multi-year programming grant. Distributed over the next two years, these funds will support Light Work’s renowned residency and exhibition programs, offering support and visibility to emerging and under-recognized artists working in photography and image-based media.

This is the second Warhol Foundation grant that the 46-year-old arts institution has received, following the first in 2015.

The highly coveted Andy Warhol Foundation grants focus on serving the needs of artists by funding the institutions that support them. In total, 42 organizations nationwide will receive more than $3.6 million in support of scholarly exhibitions, publications and visual arts programming, including artist residencies and new commissions.

“We’re extremely grateful to the Warhol Foundation for their recognition of Light Work as one of the leading arts organizations in the country,” says Light Work Director Shane Lavalette. “With their ongoing funding of our programs, we will continue to focus on our mission of providing direct support to artists.”

One testament to Light Work’s artist-centered mission comes from award-winning photographer, author, curator and former artist-in-residence Debra Willis, who reflects on the benchmark importance of the organization in her early career. “During my month-long residency at Light Work I discovered what many artists had already known—Light Work is a place where photographers are embraced, supported and treasured,” Willis says. “Whenever photographers talk to me about their work and the place where they feel most comfortable, Light Work is evoked as a spiritual-like place where photographers can be totally involved in their work.”

About the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

In accordance with Warhol’s will, The Andy Warhol Foundation’s mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The foundation’s primary focus in making grants is to support the creation, presentation and documentation of contemporary visual art, particularly work that is experimental, underrecognized or challenging in nature, emphasizing that the foundation “believes that arts and culture are a fundamental part of an open, enlightened society.”

The foundation manages an innovative and flexible grants program while also preserving Warhol’s legacy through creative and responsible licensing policies and extensive scholarly research for ongoing catalogues raisonnés projects. To date, the foundation has given more than $200 million in cash grants to more than 1,000 arts organizations in 49 states and abroad and has donated 52,786 works of art to 322 institutions worldwide. For more information, see . For more on the selected organizations and projects receiving funding, visit the .

About Light Work

Light Work is an artist-run alternative arts organization for the benefit and support of other artists. Working in collaboration with Community Darkrooms at 黑料不打烊, Light Work supports emerging and underrecognized artists, giving them the opportunity to create new work and include that work in the ongoing dialogue about contemporary art. Light Work has been fortunate to work with some of the most important artists of our time in the early stages of their careers, and they in turn have gone on to illuminate the work of others who deserve wider recognition. Follow Light Work on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. For general information, visit , call 315.443.1300 or email info@lightwork.org.

Shane Lavalette

, photographer, independent publisher and director of , is one of 111 artists, along with 12 organizations, to be awarded $3.168 million in funding from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation in its 2018-19 grant cycle. The foundation’s average grant to each artist ranges from $25,000 to $30,000. This year’s grantees include artists from 18 states, Puerto Rico and 17 countries.

The award—which the foundation states can be used to support the production of new work, exhibition preparation and other expenses—will bolster Lavalette’s artistic practice in the year to come. “I’m deeply honored to receive this award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation,” Lavalette says. “I want to extend my gratitude to the foundation and board for their generous support of my work—this grant will absolutely help to propel it forward. I’m happy to be a part of the incredible legacy of the foundation, which continues to make meaningful impacts on the careers of so many artists through this important program.”

Lavalette’s photographs have been shown widely, including exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the Aperture Foundation, the Montserrat College of Art, The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Kaunas Gallery, Le Ch?teau d’Eau, Fotostiftung Schweiz, Musée de l’Elysée and Robert Morat Galerie, in addition to being held in private and public collections. Lavalette is author of two monographs: “One Sun, One Shadow” (Lavalette, 2016) and “Still (Noon)” (Edition Patrick Frey, 2018).

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation—based in New York and operating internationally—was established in 1985 through the generosity of Lee Krasner, a leading abstraction expressionist painter and spouse of Jackson Pollock. The foundation provides grants to artists that allow them to create new work, purchase needed materials and pay for studio rent, as well as their personal and medical expenses. Since its inception, the foundation has awarded $75 million to 4,500 artist grantees in 77 countries.

Past recipients of Pollock-Krasner grants have acknowledged their critical impact in allowing concentrated time to work in the studio and prepare for exhibitions. “At the core of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s mission is fostering the work and development of artists, and our 2018-19 grant and award recipients highlight the impact we can have due to Lee Krasner’s legacy,” says Ronald D. Spencer, chairman and CEO of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

To provide additional support, the foundation maintains an up-to-date and comprehensive Grantee Image Collection representing the work of artists who have received grants since 1985. For more information, including guidelines for grant applications, visit the foundation’s website: .

“Culture Capture: Terminal Addition”

Light Work’s presents “”? by the New Red Order (NRO), an Indigenous artist collective. The NRO’s core contributors are Adam Khalil (Ojibway), Zack Khalil (Ojibway) and Jackson Polys (Tlingit), and they use video and performance to collectively challenge European settler and colonialist tendencies—such as “playing Indian”—with what they call “sites of savage pronouncement,” the purpose of which is to shift potential obstructions to Indigenous growth and agency.

Light Work commissioned “Culture Capture: Terminal Addition” for UVP and the New Red Order created this work during their monthlong visit to 黑料不打烊 in December 2018. The piece will be on view at the Urban Video Project’s architectural projection site on the north facade of the through April and May 2019.

on Thursday, April 18, at 6:30 p.m. in the Everson Museum of Art’s Hosmer Auditorium. The auditorium is wheelchair accessible, and the event will offer CART services for hard of hearing audience members. The screening and Q&A are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served after the program.

Half tongue-in-cheek absurdism and half deadly earnest, “Culture Capture: Terminal Addition” continues the New Red Order’s ongoing project of “culture capture,” recruiting viewers to participate in a program of practical strategies to counter the “salvage mindset,” which sets aside indigenous culture and sovereignty by consigning it to the past, thereby removing it from the present.

These strategies include using new, accessible technologies, such as smartphone apps that produce 3D scans of objects, ?both of indigenous material that museums and other institutions may hold and public monuments that celebrate the ideals of a region’s European settlers.

As the title of the work, “Terminal Addition” highlights the difference between addition and removal. The concept of “removal” is central to current debates about whether to remove problematic historical monuments—for example, Confederate war monuments in the South. It was also in the name of the Indian Removal Act, signed into law by President Jackson, which resulted in the displacement and death of thousands of Native peoples in what we now call the “Trail of Tears.” Both present removal as a quick fix. With?“Culture Capture: Terminal Addition,” the NRO recognizes that acts of removal inevitably contain contradictions, and proposes an additive approach instead.

NRO virtually captures objects and then subtly alters and repurposes them. The resulting spectral projection transforms their meaning and “repatriates” them.

With “Culture Capture: Terminal Addition,” the New Red Order order invites viewers to join indigenous peoples as cultural accomplices. The stakes are high: in the face of impending ecological catastrophe and unprecedented global inequality, the futures of Indigenous Peoples are bound up with a livable future for all.

Shot in and around 黑料不打烊,?“Culture Capture: Terminal Addition” uses local archives, collections and locations, including the Columbus Monument in downtown 黑料不打烊, the Saltine Warrior on the 黑料不打烊 campus, as well as 黑料不打烊’s archive of the work of James Earl Fraser, the artist who created the widely known “End of the Trail” and “Indian Head Coin.” This project was made possible through the support and collaboration of the , , and .

About the filmmakers

Adam Khalil (Ojibway) is a filmmaker and artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His practice attempts to subvert traditional forms of ethnography through humor, relation and transgression. Khalil’s work has been exhibited at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, Walker Arts Center and Whitney Museum of American Art. Khalil has received various fellowships and grants, including Flaherty Professional Development Fellowship, Gates Millennium Scholarship, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Sundance Institute Indigenous Film Opportunity Fellowship and UnionDocs Collaborative Fellowship. Khalil received a B.A. from Bard College.

Zack Khalil (Ojibway) is a filmmaker and artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. His work often explores an indigenous worldview and undermines traditional forms of historical authority through excavating alternative histories and innovative documentary forms. He recently completed a B.A. at Bard College in the Film and Electronic Arts Department, and is a Gates Millennium Scholar and UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow.

The Khalil brothers’ acclaimed debut feature film “” has screened at museums and in festivals around the world.

Jackson Polys (Tlingit) lives and works between what are currently called Alaska and New York. His work examines the limits and viability of desires for indigenous growth. He began carving with his father, Tlingit artist Nathan Jackson, from the Lukaax.ádi Clan of the Lk?óot K?wáan, and had solo exhibitions at the Alaska State Museum and the Anchorage Museum before receiving a B.A. in art history and visual arts and an M.F.A. in visual arts, both from Columbia University. He taught at Columbia (2016-17) and was advisor to Indigenous New York with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics.

Jackson received a 2017 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Mentor Artist Fellowship.? His individual and collaborative works reside in collections of the Burke Museum, Cities of Ketchikan and Saxman, Field Museum, and the ?bersee Museum-Bremen, and have appeared at Artists Space, Hercules Art/Studio Program, James Gallery, Ketchikan Museums, Microscope Gallery and the Sundance Film Festival.

This exhibition was supported by the with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

This will be the third exhibition in UVP’s 2018-19 programming year, titled “The Past Keeps Happening.” During the year, we’ll feature artists whose work explores the ways in which past imagining of the future and future reflections on the past are always at odds with the lived present.

a program of Light Work in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County, is an outdoor architectural projection site dedicated to the public presentation of film, video and moving image arts. It is one of few projects in the United States dedicated to ongoing public projections and adds a new chapter to Central New York’s legacy as one of the birthplaces of video art, using cutting-edge technology to bring art of the highest caliber to 黑料不打烊.

RB_2014_LW_67 002

The opening reception will be held on Friday, March 22, from 5-7 p.m., featuring a gallery talk with Robert Benjamin at 6 p.m. Signed copies of “River Walking” exhibition catalog, Contact Sheet 201 will be available to collectors after the talk. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Avenue, 黑料不打烊. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

A self-taught photographer and poet, Robert Benjamin’s work, often centered around his family, offers a simple and honest consideration of what it means to live and to love with intention. “I think you have to love your life, and you have to have the courage to find the world beautiful,” says Benjamin. Enchanted by color and the beauty of photography itself, Benjamin uncovers poetry in the everyday.

Benjamin never wanted a career in photography. He simply felt that he needed to make pictures. According to Benjamin, one of the great joys of being a photographer is working with cameras. He appreciates the elegance of mechanical objects deeply—their feel, their smell, their sound. Cameras are “exquisite little machines”—like typewriters, he says. Benjamin has been writing poems on his Smith-Corona Clipper longer than he’s made photographs. His poems echo the sensitivity and humble directness of his photographs. More recently, Benjamin has begun pairing what he aptly calls “small photographs” with “small poems,” a selection of which are included in this exhibition.

It’s often a mystery why a picture captivates us. A long-time friend, the widely admired photographer Robert Adams, has written about Benjamin’s portrait of his son, Walker, in his recent book, “Art Can Help.” The photograph possesses everything that embodies Benjamin’s work—a convergence of time, poetry, color, love and mystery. Adams writes, “In the distance, the rain is coming our way and the light is about to change. There is, just now, no place on earth exactly like this one.”

Benjamin grew up in Northern Illinois around suburbs, cornfields, lakes and the remaining prairies. After a brief encounter with college, he traveled—criss-crossing America, eventually to Paris, finally settling in New York City. There, he decided that photography was what he wanted to do. With the absence of any academic training or community he followed his own direction—creating a style and interest that continues to this day. His photos and poems grew intuitively, and draw on the experience of everyday life, far removed from the art world. In 2010, he agreed to a show of his work at the Denver Art Museum. In 2011, the museum and Radius Books published the book of this work, “Notes from a Quiet Life.” Benjamin continues to write and photograph. He and his family live in Colorado.

The Art Works category focuses on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and the strengthening of communities through the arts.

“The arts enhance our communities and our lives, and we look forward to seeing these projects take place throughout the country, giving Americans opportunities to learn, to create, to heal and to celebrate,” says Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

“We’re grateful for the National Endowment for the Art’s continued support of our residency program and their recognition of Light Work as one of the leading arts organizations in the country,” says Light Work’s director Shane Lavalette. “Thanks to the support of the NEA we are able to offer today’s emerging and under-recognized artists the time, space and resources they need to develop their creative projects.”

Every year Light Work invites between 12 and 15 artists to come to 黑料不打烊 to devote one month to creative projects. Over 400 artists have participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program, and many of them have gone on to achieve international acclaim. The residency includes a $5,000 stipend, a furnished artist apartment, 24-hour access to our state-of-the-art facilities and generous staff support. Work by each Artist-in-Residence is published in a special edition of?“Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual”?along with an essay commissioned by Light Work.

For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement,?.

Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Avenue. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

??work boldly addresses themes of labor, power and representation. For a Chilean artist living in America at a moment in which the president of the United States continues pressing for a border wall, the underlying narrative of Valenzuela’s work—of immigration and the struggles of the working class—is as charged as ever.

The title of the exhibition, “American Type,” refers to a 1955 essay in which art critic Clement Greenberg frames the work of abstract expressionist painters such as Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, and Rothko as distinctly American. Greenberg proposed that post-war American painting was more about the act of painting itself than about any complex idea of representation. Valenzuela finds it interesting to challenge this concept and, as he puts it, to contemplate?“how much the absence of content has become the American gold.”?He doesn’t argue that abstraction is necessarily without subject or emotion, but Valenzuela questions Greenberg and art world elitism more generally by making his own subversive abstractions that he imbues with social-political meaning.

Valenzuela’s approach to representation in his work draws our attention to the extensive labor of his artistic process. Every aspect of his work shows a trace of his own labor, from the building of studio assemblages, to the photographic steps that lead to the final prints. Even the wooden frames that hold the work have been cut, assembled, and painted by his hand. Labor is inherent in the making of all art, but for Valenzuela it becomes a compelling central subject.

Valenzuela lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He studied art history and photography at the University of Chile (2004), holds a B.A. in philosophy from The Evergreen State College (2010), and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington (2012). Recent residencies include Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, Nebraska), Center for Photography (Woodstock, New York), Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), Light Work (黑料不打烊), MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, New Hampshire), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Recent solo exhibitions include?Future Ruins?at Frye Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer (Vienna, Austria, 2018),?Work in Its Place?at Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene, Oregon, 2018),?New Land?at McColl Center (Charlotte, North Carolina, 2017),?American-Type?at Orange County Museum (Santa Ana, California, 2018),?Labor Standardsat Portland Art Museum (Portland, Oregon, 2018), and?Prole?at Ulrich Museum of Art (Wichita, Kansas, 2016). Valenzuela is an assistant professor in the Department of Art, University of California at Los Angeles, and recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in August 2017.

Tyanna Asia Seton, Untitled, 2018

Light Work announces the 2019 Transmedia Photography Annual exhibition, featuring photographs by seniors from the art photography program in the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The exhibition will be on view in the Hallway Gallery at Light Work from Jan. 14–March 1. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, Jan. 31, from 5-7 p.m. Refreshments will be served. Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center.

The exhibiting artists are Pat Boland, Chloe Conklin Woodrow, Mollie M. Crandell, Catherine E. Doherty, Nicolo Orson Gilmore, Charlotte Lester, Nick Polyzoides, Tyanna Asia Seton, Siyaka Taylor-Lewis and Junxiu Wang.

Barbara Tannenbaum, chair of prints, drawings and photographs, and curator of photography at the Cleveland Museum of Art, served as juror to select images for Best of Show and Honorable Mention awards. Tyanna Seton took Best of Show and Honorable Mentions went to Mollie M. Crandell, Charlotte Lester and Siyaka Taylor-Lewis.

“Beginning artists, whether painters, writers or photographers, are often told to start by making art about the things they know. But it is hard to see one’s backyard, family member, friend or neighborhood, with fresh eyes,” Tannenbaum says. “Harder still to bring the viewer—who is a stranger—into that world and make them feel like a participant rather than a voyeur. Yet that is what Tyanna Seton, Mollie Crandell, Charlotte Lester and Siyaka Taylor-Lewis have accomplished. Each chose to address one of the most complex subjects: the human condition.”

Professor Laura Heyman, of the Department of Transmedia, notes the importance of the annual collaboration. “In addition to giving students the space to imagine how their thesis work might develop over the following months, the TRM Annual show introduces their work to their peers, the local community, and the renowned curators and critics who jury the exhibition.”

Image courtesy of Light Work UVP: (right to left) Emanuel Almborg’s “Every Crack Is a Symbol” and Crystal Z Campbell’s “On the Way to the Moon, We Discovered the Earth.”

Light Work’s(UVP) program is presenting “URBAN RENEWAL,” a two-person exhibition featuring the work of multimedia artists Emanuel Almborg and Crystal Z Campbell, through Dec. 22 at UVP’s outdoor projection site on the north fa?ade of the 401 Harrison St., 黑料不打烊, Thursday through Saturday, from dusk until 11 p.m.

This is the second exhibition in Light Work UVP’s 2018-19 season, “The Past Keeps Happening.” The exhibition is supported by the with the support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

In conjunction with the exhibition, an with Almborg and Campbell will take place at Light Work’s Watson Theater on Thursday, Nov. 29, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. This event will feature additional work and a conversation with Emanuel Carter Jr., a faculty member at SNUY-ESF; Lanessa Chaplin, project counsel for the Central New York chapter of NYCLU; and Yusuf Abdul Qadir, director of the CNY Chapter of NYCLU, exploring how issues conveyed in the exhibition relate to 黑料不打烊’s own history and legacy of urban renewal. A reception will follow.

The auditorium is wheelchair accessible, and CART services are available by reservation (by Nov. 14) by calling 315.443.1369 or emailing info@urbanvideoproject.com.

Also, on Nov. 16, during the Everson Museum’s free Third Thursday event, Anneka Herre, UVP director and instructor in the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, will engage with visitors in an open-ended discussion about the works that UVP presents.

About the Artists
Emanuel Almborg is Swedish artist living and working in Stockholm. His research-based work explores themes of collective action, political economy and radical pedagogy, manifesting in a range of practices and media, from moving image and installation-based work to publications to participatory programs. He received his M.F.A. from Goldsmiths University in London and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. He has exhibited internationally, including shows at Gallery 400 (Chicago), Gasworks (London), Konsthall C (Stockholm, Sweden), Participant Inc. (New York City) and Whitechapel Gallery (London).

Crystal Z Campbell is a multidisciplinary artist and writer of African American, Filipino and Chinese descent. She is a former social worker. Her practice incorporates archival material and historical traces to question the politics of the witness. Recent works include investigations of Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cell line, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and gentrification via a 35mm film relic salvaged from a now demolished black civil rights theater in Brooklyn. Campbell exhibits internationally, including past exhibitions at de Appel Arts Centre in Amsterdam, Project Row Houses in Houston, SculptureCenter in New York City and Studio Museum of Harlem. Her honors, fellowships and residencies include the Flaherty Film Seminar, M-AAA Innovations Grant, MacDowell Colony, Rijksakademie, Skowhegan, Smithsonian, Sommerakademie Paul Klee, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program and Yaddo. Campbell is a current Drawing Center Open Sessions Fellow, recipient of the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Award and a third-year Tulsa Artist Fellow.

About the Works
“Every Crack Is a Symbol (Charlotte Street Project)”
Director, Emanuel Almborg 2015 | 30 min. | HD video

“Every Crack is a Symbol (Charlotte Street Project)” is a short film that takes as its starting point two events and two kinds of representation of a South Bronx neighborhood in 1980. The horror film “Wolfen” is about killer wolves living in the ruins of the South Bronx. “People’s Convention” videotaped an attempt to bring together a large coalition of different left social movements and community activists. Both films were shot at the same location, the horror film six months before the protest camp commenced. Both use the urban decay of the South Bronx as backdrop and symbol to generate images, one of demands and radical politics, the other of killer ghost wolves in the ruins of the urban crisis. The horror story of wolves parallels the urban struggles around and against real estate, finance and neo-liberal policies in the early 1980s.

“On the Way to the Moon, We Discovered the Earth”
Director, Crystal Z Campbell 2012 | 9 min. 49 sec. loop | digital video

“On the Way to the Moon, We Discovered the Earth” is a historical remix of The New York Times edition printed during the New York City Blackout in 1977, an event unofficially credited as the birth of hip-hop, a movement that was already well underway but advanced with equipment looted during the riots.

“Futures for Failures”
Director, Crystal Z Campbell 2011 | 1 min. | found footage

“Futures for Failures” is double narrative of failure: architectural and social. Archival footage from a demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe Building in St. Louis manifests that failure. Meanwhile, a voice-over recounts a moment of contagious laughter erupting during a stranger’s funeral. The film is a conversation between the disappeared and the disappearing.

“Go-Rilla Means War”
Director, Crystal Z Campbell 2017 | 19 min. 21 sec. | 35mm film transferred to 2K, original stereo sound

With 35mm film salvaged from a now-demolished black civil rights theater in Brooklyn, “Go-Rilla Means War” is a cinematic parable about gentrification and the intersections of development, cultural preservation and erasure.

About Urban Video Project
a program of Light Work in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County, is an outdoor architectural projection site dedicated to the public presentation of film, video and moving image arts. It is one of few projects in the United States dedicated to ongoing public projections and adds a new chapter to Central New York’s legacy as one of the birthplaces of video art, using cutting-edge technology to bring art of the highest caliber to 黑料不打烊.

Using a large venue projector and permanently installed all-weather sound system, UVP’s outdoor architectural projection site on the north fa?ade of the iconic Everson Museum of Art transforms the adjoining Onondaga County Community Plaza into a year-round massive video installation every Thursday through Saturday night.

For more information, visit, call 315.443.1369 or email info@urbanvideoproject.com.

Scarville’s exhibition will be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery from Nov. 1–Dec. 13 , 2018. The opening reception on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 5-7 p.m., features a gallery talk with Keisha Scarville at 6 p.m. Find Light Work in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center on the 黑料不打烊 campus at 316 Waverly Avenue, 黑料不打烊, NY 13244. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments served.

After the death of her mother in 2015, Scarville deepened her use of photography as a way to explore how the loss of such an anchor point can affect one’s identity and sense of both absence and self in the world.

Scarville’s new exhibition, titled “Alma,” presents a selection of photographs whose larger subject is transformation born of loss.

She has worked on this project for more than three years and has approached it in several different ways that she describes as “chapters.” Initially the work was about body as medium and then, place-as-container, particularly Guyana, South America, Alma’s birthplace, and Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an enclave of Caribbean immigrants where Scarville grew up, which she continues to call home.

Working with Alma’s richly patterned clothing and possessions Scarville states she looks for ways to visually conjure her mother’s presence. “I am interested in how the absent body lives in the photograph and the materiality of absence. I am seeking invocation, something celebratory that rethinks absence as a threshold.”

Scarville (b. 1975) ?is a mixed media artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Scarville’s primary theme is the relationship between transformation and the unknown. Grounded in photography, she works across media to explore place, absence, and subjectivity. She has exhibited at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, BRIC Arts Media House, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Lesley Heller Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Diasporan Arts, Rush Arts Gallery, and Studio Museum of Harlem. She has participated in artist residencies at Baxter Street CCNY, BRIC Workspace, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Light Work Artist Residency Program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Vermont Studio Center. Scarville is adjunct faculty at the International Center of Photography and Parsons School of Design.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, photographers are invited to sign-up for one-on-one portfolio review in the Light Work Lab with the artist Keisha Scarville. Scarville will explore ideas of narrative structure, editing and content. Reviews are by appointment only, email mlhodgen@syr.edu to register.

The “Keisha Scarville: Alma” exhibition and the Portfolio Review Workshop were made possible by the generous support of the 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center and is part of the 2018-19 黑料不打烊 Symposium: Stories.