Build Your Own Portal: Motion Capture and Avatar Creation Workshop
2025-11-05 17:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | 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.

Roadside Picnic: An Evening at Light Work
2026-08-07 17:00 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
5-6:30 p.m. Gallery Reception
6:30-8 p.m. Screening + Talk
Join Light Work for a summer evening of art and conversation featuring media artists from around Upstate!
Gallery reception for Flat Tires and the 2026 Light Work Grants in Photography, feat. work by Amrita Stützle, Hernease Davis, Ian Sherlock Molloy, Maureen Beitler, and Patty Tomanovich.
The reception will be followed by a film screening and talk by Fatemeh Kazemi + Zelikha Zohra Shoja in the auditorium.
Following the event, Shoja’s video work In Search of Bluer Tongues may be viewed in the nearby Everson Community Plaza.
ACCESSIBILITY:
Light Work is wheelchair accessible.
Films will be captioned/subtitled. To request CART services for the Q&A or to ask questions about accessibility please reach out to uvp@lightwork.org
