Light Work’s Urban Video Project is pleased to present In Search of Bluer Tongues, new video work by artist Zelikha Zohra Shoja, which is on view at our architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade in downtown Syracuse from July 2 – September 12, 2026.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Shoja will present a screening and hold a Q&A with her frequent collaborator Fatemeh Kazemi at Light Work on August 8.

About the Work

In Search of Bluer Tongues 
dir. Zelikha Zohra Shoja
2026 

In 2021, artist Zelikha Zohra Shoja planned to shoot a new film at the site of her maternal home in Kabul, Afghanistan, but due to the return of the Taliban and ensuing violence, the project could not be realized. In Search of Bluer Tongues reimagines the domestic scenes Shoja hoped to play out in Kabul, working instead with members of resettled communities in the city of Syracuse and in Queens, NY. The resulting piece is an act of collaborative memory-making and a meditation on the diasporic experience of longing to be in a place that can only be watched from afar.

To create this piece, Shoja composed a stop motion animation sequence featuring traditional dastarkhwan cloths, which are traditionally laid on the ground for dining, and conducted a series of “screen tests” and staged rituals of hospitality with participants from around New York State who have a relationship to diaspora, migration and displacement. She connected with Community Care of Syracuse, a mutual aid group run by Palestinian-American organizer Ellie Abdelfatah, who brought together participants from the Northside Learning Center and Masjid Isa ibn Maryam (Mosque of Jesus, son of Maryam). Additional screen tests were filmed in Tempest Gallery in Queens in response to an open call Shoja put out for participants.

This piece was created by Shoja through the 2026 UVP Regional Commission Program.

About the Artist

Zelikha Zohra Shoja is a U.S.-based Afghan artist, researcher, and غمخوار / gham-khoor*  living and working on unceded Onondaga land (Syracuse, New York). Her work is engaged in geopoetics, ecologies of interdependence, and the transmission of memory. With an academic background in migration and diaspora, she works with moving image, ephemeral fabric photobooks, and gestural studies to explore how collective experiences can be transferred, mirrored, and felt by others.

Her films and art have participated in international and national microcinemas, film festivals, and institutions including Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille), Goethe-Institut (Almaty and Tashkent), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna; upcoming), Millennium Film Workshop (New York), National Art Gallery — The Palace (Sofia), New Wight Gallery (Los Angeles), Rhizome DC (Washington, D.C.), silent green Kulturquartier (Berlin), VIFF Centre (Toronto), among others.

Most recently, Zelikha is a recipient of the 2024-25 Fulbright U.S. Student Award pursuing creative research in Tajikistan and Türkiye.

*غمخوار / gham-khoor means “grief eater” in Persian

Artist’s website: zelikhashoja.com

Sponsors

All Light Work exhibitions are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and through a Tier Two 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 UVP exhibitions are made possible through a partnership with Onondaga County and the Everson Museum of Art.

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