Light Work

Lines of Flight: Joiri Minaya | Miryam Charles
2025-02-27 19:00 - 2025-05-24 23:00 (America/New_York) | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Light Work’s Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Lines of Flight featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles exploring the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.
The exhibition will run from February 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 Syracuse University Museum in the show Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum from January 21 to 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 6:30pm in Watson Theater across from Light Work’s galleries.

February 27 – May 24, 2025
Thursday – Saturday, dusk – 11pm
Everson Museum Plaza
401 Harrison Street

The Archive as Liberation Exhibition
2025-05-12 10:00 - 2025-08-29 17:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
May 12–August 29, 2025
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery
Reception: Friday, July 25th, 5-7pm
The Archive as Liberation is a publication and exhibition organized by Aaron Turner (Light Work artist–in-residence, 2018, and Light Work exhibiting artist, 2021). Turner has gathered a unique group of artists and writers to engage in dialogue around archival photographic methods. Contributors include Andre Bradley, calista lyon, Raymond Thompson Jr., Harrison D. Walker, and Savannah Wood, alongside writing by Chisato Hughes, Alec Kaus, Andrew Martinez, Aaron Turner, Amelia Wallin, and Wendel A. White, with a foreword by the book’s editor, Donasia Tillery. The publication was designed by Elana Schlenker.
To mark the launch of this publication, Light Work has mounted an exhibition highlighting many of the contributing artists. This exhibition includes work by Andre Bradley, Chisato Hughes, Alec Kaus, calista lyon, Raymond Thompson Jr., Harrison D. Walker, Wendel A. White, and Savannah Wood.
“The artists included in this publication and exhibition are engaged in resilience, ancestral understanding, counter-memory, translation, activism, tension, narrative, and critique. Through their artistic gestures, they illustrate freedom in the Archive.” —Aaron Turner
The exhibition also includes a unique reading room curated by Turner with artists’ books from his personal collection and pieces from Light Work’s collection. The reading room will be in Light Work’s Lab for the duration of the exhibition.

2025 Light Work Grants in Photography Exhibition
2025-05-12 10:00 - 2025-08-29 17:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
May 12–August 29, 2025
Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery
Reception: Friday, July 25, 5-7pm
With enormous pleasure, we present the 50th Annual Light Work Grants in Photography! The 2025 recipients are Sarah Knobel (St. Lawrence), Joe Librandi-Cowan (Onondaga County), and Lida Suchy (Onondaga County). The two runners-up are Marna Bell (Onondaga County) and Adrian Francis (Onondaga County).
This year’s judge was Marina Chao (a curator at CPW in Kingston, NY), who writes: “From an unexpected approach to plastic waste to portraits of Ukrainian civic leaders to an exploration of home, family, and memory, this year’s grantees address subjects that are intimate and personal, urgent and political, in innovative, collaborative, and deeply felt ways.”
The Light Work Grants are part of our ongoing effort to support and encourage Central New York artists working in photography and related mediums within a fifty-mile radius of Syracuse. Established in 1975, the Light Work Grants are among the oldest photography fellowships in the country.

In Conversation: Courtney Rile
2025-06-26 20:30 - 2025-08-30 23:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Light Work’s Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition In Conversation from June 26 to August 30 at their architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade.
In Conversation is new work created by Courtney Rile. This work explores the moving image and our human relationship to technology through the language of the canon of video art.

In Conversation
2025
In the early 1970s, Syracuse was a center of innovation — the Everson Museum hired one of the first curators of video art and hosted seminal media artists from around the world. At the same time, Synapse, an experimental media collective at Syracuse University, provided fertile ground for explorations of this new technology as both art form and revolutionary tool of communication.
In Conversation is a dialogue with the work of Bill Viola, Shigeko Kubota, and Peter Campus, all of whom exhibited at the Everson Museum in the early 70s. Structured in a series of modules that function like musical movements or songs on an album, motifs recur throughout In Conversation: reflections, the distortion of time, video as an extension of self, and video as an observational tool, exploring the individual, intimate experience of video as a way to see ourselves from another perspective or in another time, a step beyond the present tense of the mirror. These explorations, which trace their lineage to the earliest days of video art, are more relevant than ever in today’s world, a world in which audiovisual technologies have become integral to nearly every facet of our lives.

Book Signing at Baxter St CCNY
2025-07-23 17:00 - 19:00 | Baxter St CCNY, 154 Ludlow Street, New York, New York, 10002
Join us at Baxter St on July 23rd for a book signing with Aaron Turner! This event is open to the public and runs from 5-7 PM. Books will be available for purchase, and you can come check out Baxter Street’s new space!
Reach out to Light Work and Baxter St for any questions. We hope to see you there!

Source Material: An Evening of Archival Explorations at Light Work
2025-07-25 17:00 - 22:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Stop by Light Work’s galleries at 5 PM to check our shows, The Archive as Liberation and the 2025 Grants in Photography. At 5:30 PM, Aaron Turner will be present for a gallery talk.
Enjoy some food & stay for the premiere of Video Ocean at 7 PM, a documentary by our 2025 UVP Regional Commissioned Artist, Courtney Rile, followed by a panel discussion between Rile and curators DJ Hellerman (MoCA Cleveland) and Tara Merenda Nelson (Visual Studies Workshop) exploring media art history and preservation.
Then head down to the Everson Museum Plaza to see Rile’s commissioned piece In Conversation on the facade of the building at 9 PM and on exhibit at UVP through August 30.
All events are free & open to the public.

Sasha Phyars-Burgess: Everything Nice Opening Reception
2025-09-18 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Sasha Phyars-Burgess’s photographic project Everything Nice traces her family history through Portugal, the Dominican Republic, Florida, and Louisiana, following the paths of sugarcane farmed on colonial plantations and the transatlantic slave trade in relation to her ancestors. The pictures provide clues and details that are layered into a larger story.
Looking back at history and locating the present, Phyars-Burgess is thinking through the idea that we are all living in a history, whether it is acknowledged or not. Once acknowledged, and if we allow ourselves to live with the past, with choices made by and for others, we can access a wider view of the present day.
Through research and picture-making, Phyars-Burgess’s ongoing project affords us a better understanding of globalization and its languages, and shows us that places which at first glance look “ethnic” can be regarded differently.
The work’s title, Everything Nice, is the name of a song by Popcaan. In it, he speaks about the hardships and struggles that people are going through while also joining together in community, getting to the heart of the matter, and being present. This exhibition invites us to slowly look, ask questions, and decipher information to uncover possible and actual answers.
—
Sasha Phyars-Burgess.
b. 1988.
Scorpio.
Black.
Alive.
sashaphyars-burgess.com

2025 MFA Photography Survey Opening Reception
2025-09-18 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Light Work announces with great pleasure our triennial exhibition in partnership with the Art Photography MFA program from the Film and Media Arts Department in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. In this survey of candidates, we see a wide range of approaches that complement and vary from each other: ideas of documentary and fictionalized documentary, the landscape, the personal archive combined with found imagery, female gender, power dynamics, a reworking of personal histories, cultural histories, and mass media. Altogether, this selection presents both a curious and confident showcase in experimental and traditional picture-making processes that highlights the ever-expanding field of photography through distinct perception and follow-through.
The goal of the Art Photography MFA program is to help artists develop their unique voice. Through intensive study that includes individual and group critique along with courses in history, theory, and criticism, candidates benefit from an intense and passionate learning environment that emphasizes contemporary art and practice.
The exhibition includes work by: Reyad Abedin, Lucas Cobb, Jared Dominique, Taylor Gearhart, Suihang Huang, Christian Jones, Jacobb Nichol, Tony Rayo, Lia Teeuwissen, and Jiayue Yu.

Build Your Own Portal: Motion Capture and Avatar Creation Workshop
2025-11-05 17:30 - 20:30 | Community Folk Art Center, 805 E Genesee St, Syracuse, 13210, United States
Light Work UVP is partnering with Community Folk Art Center (CFAC) and La Casita Cultural Center to present a FREE workshop with our fall artists exploring the possibilities of emerging technologies!
Media artists LaJuné McMillian and Manuel Molina Martagon will guide participants through exercises in self-expression through movement and the use of simple motion capture and avatar creation software, exploring the ways we can creatively “mis-use” these technologies as tools of liberation.
No technical expertise or equipment required!
Copórea Digital, the workshop at La Casita, will include instruction and discussion in both Spanish and English.
Space is limited and registration is required.
Please sign up for only one session.

Corpórea Digital: Bilingual Motion Capture and Avatar Creation Workshop
2025-11-08 12:00 - 16:00 | La Casita, 109 Otisco St., Syracuse, NY, 13204, United States
Light Work UVP is partnering with Community Folk Art Center (CFAC) and La Casita Cultural Center to present a FREE workshop with our fall artists exploring the possibilities of emerging technologies!
Media artists LaJuné McMillian and Manuel Molina Martagon will guide participants through exercises in self-expression through movement and the use of simple motion capture and avatar creation software, exploring the ways we can creatively “mis-use” these technologies as tools of liberation.
No technical expertise or equipment required!
Copórea Digital, the workshop at La Casita, will include instruction and discussion in both Spanish and English.
Space is limited and registration is required. Use the buttons on the sidebar to register.
Please sign up for only one session.

Karolina Wojtas: Made In Poland Opening Reception
2026-01-22 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
January 22 – March 6, 2026 | Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, Light Work
Opening Reception: January 22, 5-7 PM
Made in Poland, Karolina Wojtas’ first U.S. solo exhibition, unfolds like a care package sent to America—one filled with the absurd, the folkish, and the wonderfully weird cultural treasures of Poland. The exhibition features a dynamic mix of fabric prints, soft sculptures, and traditional photographs that play with form while drawing on everyday observations, childhood memories, and the oddities of growing up. Wojtas’ project becomes a journey through education, family relationships, and first loves—infused throughout with nostalgia, humor, and a generous dose of self-irony.

2026 BFA Art Photography Annual Opening Reception
2026-01-22 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
January 22–March 6, 2026
Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery
Reception: Thurs, January 22, 5-7pm
With great pleasure, Light Work presents the 2026 BFA 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 Syracuse University.

Exhibiting Artists:
Alex Cai
Donniae Collins
Sofia Marie Capparelli
Brooke Datys
Ixchel Loren Flores
Ashlyn Garcia
Nadia Holl
Adeline Hume
Mia Ignazio
Hannah Stein
Ella Tovey
Ming Zhong

Survival Guide: Syracuse feat. Alisha B Wormsley
2026-03-19 18:00 - 20:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Join Light Work UVP for a free film screening and panel talk! The program features a special cut of Alisha B Wormsley’s latest film, The Temple of Our Survival, exploring Black womxn’s stories of and strategies for survival. A panel talk with the artist and local doulas Asteir Bey and SeQuoia Kemp, who appear in the film, follows.
More info: Survival Guide: Syracuse event
RSVP

We're Just Here for the Bad Guys: Opening Reception
2026-03-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
March 20–May 22, 2026
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery
Reception: Thurs, March 26, 5-7pm
We’re Just Here for the Bad Guys chronicles Brian Van Lau’s relationship with his estranged father. Lau’s father was absent during his childhood due to his incarceration. After his release, he rebuilt his life in Vietnam, remarried, and gradually disappeared from Lau’s life. Nearly a decade later, Lau traveled to Vietnam following his father’s sudden illness, and learned of his terminal cancer. During their final week together, they collaborated on a photographic project that documented his father’s unsuccessful path toward recovery. After his father’s passing, Lau returned to his hometown in Hawai‘i seeking closure, uncovering hidden correspondence that revealed previously unknown parts of his father’s life. Entrusted with dispersing his father’s ashes across O‘ahu, the artist began working with his grandparents to reconstruct this fragmented family history through photography.

Oracle in the Aperture: Opening Reception
2026-03-26 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
March 20–May 22, 2026
Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery
Reception: Thurs, March 26, 5-7pm
Arcanite Pictures was started to highlight emerging artists, emphasizing the personal narrative angle and diaristic storytelling in photography. Through online features and group shows, a library of small personal projects began to build, and, excitingly, as more people were invited to share their work, a lineage and an echoing formed, discoveries were made, and the distance between people diminished as a web of connections was established. The pictures shared constituted a language, and a portal to the various practices now joined across different cities, subcultures, and decades-old archives. For Oracle in the Aperture, artists were selected to join with peers, personal influences, and emerging lens-based artists to amplify and enhance each other’s stories, emphasizing interpersonal and private relationships and the talismanic ability of photography to illuminate familial and gestural scenes.
-Brian Van Lau
Exhibiting artists: Walker Bankson, Bryan Birks, Marisa Chaftez, Luis Manuel Diaz, Paloma Dooley, Hannah Edelman, Ryan Frigillana, Sabrina Giacomaggio, Stephen Ross Goldstein, Phoebe Shuman Goodier, Lexi Hide, Jasmine Huang, Jeffrey Jin, Tommy Keith, Ian Kline, Joe Leavenworth, Jinyong Lian, Chika Winston Ma, Jordan Monloire, Ricardo Nagaoka, Pete Pin, Ian Ritter, Dylan Safranek, Ian Sherlock Molloy, Ian Edward White, Kevin Williamson

POSTPONED: Book Signing and Artist Talk with Brian Van Lau
2026-05-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Penumbra Foundation, 36 E. 30th St, New York, NY, 10016, United States
POSTPONED: NEW DATE TBA
Join Light Work and Penumbra Foundation to celebrate the release of We’re Just Here for the Bad Guys, the debut monograph by 2025 Workspace resident Brian Van Lau, published by Light Work. The evening will feature a conversation between the artist and Light Work’s Director, Dan Boardman, followed by a book signing.
We’re Just Here for the Bad Guys chronicles Brian Van Lau’s relationship with his estranged father. Lau’s father was absent during his childhood due to his incarceration. After his release, he rebuilt his life in Vietnam, remarried, and gradually disappeared from Lau’s life. Nearly a decade later, Lau traveled to Vietnam following his father’s sudden illness, and learned of his terminal cancer. During their final week together, they collaborated on a photographic project that documented his father’s unsuccessful path toward recovery. After his father’s passing, Lau returned to his hometown in Hawai‘i seeking closure, uncovering hidden correspondence that revealed previously unknown parts of his father’s life. Entrusted with dispersing his father’s ashes across O‘ahu, the artist began working with his grandparents to reconstruct this fragmented family history through photography.
Van Lau’s project has been featured in Aperture, The Washington Post, W Magazine, and It’s Nice That.
