50th Anniversary Programming

Light Work’s anniversary-related educational programs, workshops, and curator-led tours will be hosted at the Everson Museum of Art.

Light Work’s celebratory retrospective will boast a full roster of 50th Anniversary exhibition-related special events, workshops, and docent-led tours at the Everson Museum of Art. Register for a tour today!


Proclamation Presentation
Thursday, April 13, 6:00 p.m. EST

Hosmer Auditorium| Everson Museum 

Nodesia Hernandez, the Director of Community Outreach in the 53rd District’s Senate Office, will present a Proclamation to Light Work. Issued by the Office of Senator Rachel May, the proclamation recognitions Light Work’s unwavering support of emerging and under-represented artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging since its inception fifty years ago.


Deborah Willis: Keynote Lecture
Thursday, April 13, 6:00 p.m. EST
Hosmer Auditorium| Everson Museum 


Dr. Deborah Willis

Light Work will host an artist lecture with award-winning historian, author, curator, photographer, and former Light Work residency participant (1990), Deborah Willis, Ph.D., in the Everson Museum’s Hosmer Auditorium on Thursday, April 13, at 6:00 p.m. Please Note: This event is free and open to the public

Deborah Willis, Ph.D., is a University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & 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 research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers, and beauty. She is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She is the author of The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship and Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present, among others. Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include: Home: Reimagining Interiority at YoungArts, Miami, Framing Moments in the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, Migrations and Meanings in Art, and Free at they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory at FotoFocus 2022.


Urban Video Project Commissions & Insights
Malzman Gallery | Everson Museum
January 28 – May 14


Installation view of “Anathema” (2011) by The Otolith Group on the Everson Museum facade

Visitors to Everson Museum of Art’s Malzman Gallery can engage select works commissioned for Light Work’s Urban Video Project and UVP Insights, a video series blending documentation of the projection on the facade, clips from the exhibited work, and the artist’s own words.

In 2012, Light Work began the Urban Video Project (UVP) commission program, inviting emerging and mid-career artists working in experimental media to create new work for projection on the Everson Museum’s north facade. Working in collaboration with Onondaga County and the Everson Museum of Art, Light Work relocated their most powerful projector, relaunching with an inaugural exhibition from SU alum and video art pioneer Bill Viola. UVP has grown into a robust exhibition, event, and commission program, adding a new chapter to the region’s legacy as a birthplace of video art.


Educational Programming

Anniversary-related educational programs and workshops will be hosted at the Everson Museum of Art. Find registration information below. Note: Everon Museum of Art members receive a discounted price. Once you have signed in, this discount will be reflected on the Payment Window.


Portrait Photography
Instructor: Joe Librandi-Cowan
Saturday, February 18 | Noon-3:00 p.m.

Join photographer Joe Librandi-Cowan for a workshop on natural light portrait photography. Learn how to manipulate and work with simple, natural light sources to make powerful photographic portraits. In conjunction with 50th Anniversary: Selections from Light Work Collection. Participants will engage with the exhibition and learn how the photographs use light to tell different stories. All levels are welcome.

$20 Member | $25 Non-Member
(Discount taken at the end of check-out.)