Light Work

UVP Community Night: Teens With A Movie Camera
2024-03-08 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Join Light Work’s Urban Video Project for a series of Community Night pop-up exhibitions and events on the plaza this [SEASON]! Are you interested in hosting a UVP community night event? Submit a proposal today!
These events are FREE & OPEN to the public.

TeenReel: Teens With A Movie Camera

Friday | March 8
Rain or shine!
Light Work’s Urban Video Project (UVP) is honored to feature a short film program as part of Teens With A Movie Camera, a community day celebrating the filmmaking collaboration between the City of Syracuse teens and the City of Syracuse media artists.
The collaboration is led by Associate Professor Mišo Suchý; Guggenheim Fellow Lida Suchy; and award winning filmmaker & recent SU alum Evan Bode. Teens with a Movie Camera is made with the support of Urban Video Project / Light Work, Nottingham High School, The North Side Learning Center, Engaged Humanities, the SOURCE, VPA, CNYArts, and Say Yes to Education-Syracuse. This creative project focuses on personal visual storytelling and culminates with the creation of original short movies and their public presentation in the community in which they were made.
Teens with a Movie Camera is made possible through the CNY Arts Grants for Regional Arts and Cultural Engagement regrant program thanks to a New York State Senate Initiative supported by the NYS Legislature, the Office of the Governor and administered by the New York State Council.

Photoshop Basics Course
2024-03-05 18:00 - 2024-03-26 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Tuesdays: 3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 3/26 from 6-8 PM

Where: Light Work, 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13210 located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center.
Cost: $150
Open to members and non-members!
Link to register: https://commerce.cashnet.com/lightworklab?ItemCode=41200-079
Get to know Photoshop in this four-week course led by Koz and Becky. Running each Tuesday from 6-8pm, this class will cover the fundamentals of image-editing in Photoshop. Learn how to make color and contrast adjustments in your photos, lightly retouch, and then prep to print! Each class will be an hour of instruction followed by an hour of studio time. At the end of the four weeks, you will leave with a finished print and written guide on the editing workflow used.

Lens-Based Open Studio
2024-02-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
When: 2/13, 6-8pm
Where: Light Work, 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13210 located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center.
Cost: Free
Open to members and non-members!
Link to register: https://forms.gle/sqUk3VcjEE7CPuvz5
Come hang with us in the lab! Bring your photos or other lens-based projects and check out what others are working on. Show us your working prints, book dummy, portfolio, collage pieces, etc.! In-progress and finished projects are welcome at this open studio. Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or just starting out, this is the perfect opportunity to share your work and receive feedback.

Open House
2024-01-25 18:30 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Join us on Thursday, January 25th for Light Work’s Open House, and to celebrate Syracuse University’s BFA work in photography. Food and refreshments will be served!
Sophia Chai’s exhibition, “Character Space”, will also be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery.

RSVP here

2024 BFA Art Photography Annual Reception
2024-01-25 18:30 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Light Work presents the 2024 BFA Art Photography Annual of photographs by seniors from the Art Photography program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. The exhibition takes place in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery from January 19th – March 8th, 2024. We will host a reception with the exhibiting artists on Thursday, January 25th, at 6:30p.m. The in-person reception is free and open to the public and includes refreshments.
The exhibiting artists are Keming Chen, Madison Chloe, Zhiyu Feng, Siya Hu, Megan Ivy, Megan Jonas, Yu-Hsia Liu, Tyber Longacre, Chika Winston Ma, Clara Neville, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Avery Wild, Suhao Yang, and Joe Zhao. Nelson Chan served as juror, selecting Siya Hu as Best in Show.
Associate Professor Laura Heyman, coordinator of the Art Photography BFA program, writes:
Each spring, seniors in the art photography program exhibit a selection of images from their senior thesis at Light Work. Senior thesis is a yearlong (or longer) in-depth photographic exploration of a subject chosen by the students. The open-ended nature of the process can be a challenge, and the work often changes radically between the beginning of September, when students start their projects, and December, when the work is installed for exhibition. Students choose, edit, and print the images in collaboration and with the assistance Light Work’s curatorial staff and master printers. The BFA Art Photography Annual is not only the first exhibition for many of our students, 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 next several months, the Art Photography Annual introduces their thesis work to their peers, the local community and the renowned curators and critics who jury the exhibition.

Strange Terrain: Institute of Queer Ecology in Conversation with Jack Halberstam
2023-11-02 18:00 - 22:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Urban Video Project (UVP) will present media arts collective The Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) for an multimedia artist talk followed by panel discussion with writer and scholar Jack Halberstam using Halberstam’s concepts “unworlding” and “bewilderment” as a way to reimagine inhabiting the landscape beyond colonial and extractive practices.
This event will take place in the Everson Museum’s Hosmer Auditorium in conjunction with an exhibition of new work (working title: Hysteria) by IQECO specially commissioned for UVP, which will be shown as an architectural projection on the facade of the Everson. Additional work by IQECO will also be on view inside the museum.
In early 2023, Urban Video Project (UVP) hosted the Institute of Queer Ecology for a residency. During their residency, the artists worked with local performers and shot footage for a new piece in Syracuse and at various sites around Central New York, including the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant at Onondaga Lake, Three Falls Park, Pratts Falls, and Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. This piece explores the poorly understood “dancing plagues” of the medieval era, in which the afflicted danced, often in massive groups, to the point of collapse. These strange events are now thought to have been the result of a combination of psychosocial contagion and, perhaps, water-born environmental contamination. IQECO reimagines the uncontrolled dance of choreomania as a mode of queer resistance to environmental degradation.
In making the work here in Syracuse, IQECO were particularly interested in the contrast between the Central New York landscape as a site of “pristine” natural beauty—e.g. Pratt’s Falls—and as a site of ecological damage, such as Onondaga Lake, with its complex status as both a sacred place for the Onondaga Nation and as an EPA Superfund site once dubbed the “most polluted lake in the America”, now in the process of ongoing remediation.
About Institute of Queer Ecology:
Founded in 2017 and co-directed by Lee Pivnik and Nicolas Baird, The Institute of Queer Ecology has worked with over 130 different artists across a variety of arts, humanities and scientific disciplines. In their own words, “The IQECO navigates the idea of vanishing ‘nature’ through frameworks of queer futurity. The artists assume a position of critical optimism, in part as a coping mechanism for the pain of living in, engaging with, and loving a biodiverse world that is being undeniably annihilated.”

Jeffrey Hoone Gallery Dedication
2023-09-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
A gallery dedication event for our current Hallway Gallery.

2023 Light Work Grants in Photography Opening Reception
2023-09-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Light Work announces the 49th annual Light Work Grants in Photography! The 2023 award recipients are Amy Kozlowski, Tahila Mintz, and Linda Moses. 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 fifty-mile radius of Syracuse.
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 Ally Caple, Kris Graves, and Kelsey Sucena.
August 25– December 13, 2023
Hoone Gallery
Reception: Thursday, September 14, 5-7pm
Hoone Gallery Dedication: Thursday, September 14, 6pm

Eduardo L Rivera: The Sun Echoed Like A Song Opening Reception
2023-09-14 17:00 - 19:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
The Sun Echoed Like A Song is an exhibition of photographs made in Eduardo L Rivera’s childhood hometown near the Arizona/Mexico border. Taking inspiration from light and heat, he has been exploring the personal histories of family, community, and environment throughout the last decade.
Rivera takes his visual cues from this project’s central character, Phoenix, and its ever-present light and heat—two intangible forces that we feel but we cannot directly see or photograph. Yet light and heat wield direct and enigmatic power over who and what Rivera photographs. While seeking this subject in everyday moments, Rivera moves fluidly between two very different analog cameras: the 6 x 7 medium format and the 4 x 5 field camera. The results of his moving between these two precise instruments to interpret and organize what he sees within the frame, his knowledge, clarity of intention, and sense of space all become obvious. Whether using the handheld camera or the one upon a tripod, he might stage the image. Rivera responds to what he sees in front of him.

August 25–December 15, 2023
Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery
Opening Reception: Thurs, Sep 14, 5-7pm
Artist Talk & Gallery Dedication: Thurs, Sep 14, 6pm

Evan Starling-Davis: FRACTURE Guided Experience
2023-08-31 20:00 - 22:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
In this innovative exhibition, viewers can interact with UVP’s projection on the facade of the Everson using their personal smart devices to explore the virtual world of FRACTURE, imagined by Evan Starling-Davis. FRACTURE is an Afro-Surreal poetic experience featuring 3D renderings of objects from Afro-diasporic culture in local collections and archives, including the SUArt Museum.
FRACTURE will transform the Everson Plaza into a space of communal interactivity—between viewers, the virtual world, and each other. Leaning into the experience of play, FRACTURE allows the audience to immerse themselves imaginatively in the created world, taking time to reflect on the possibility suggested by the title: “Maybe you may find yourself in the fracture.”
CREDITS
Artist: Evan Starling-Davis
Lead Developer: Sonny Cirasuolo
Consulting Developer: Gary Tyler McLeod
3D Model and Game Engine Consultant: Chanee Choi
Artist Talk & Guided Experience on the Plaza
Thursday, August 31 | 8pm
Everson Plaza

Black Artist Collective: Black August at Freedom Fest
2023-08-19 17:00 - 23:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Black Artist Collective in collaboration with Urban Video Project commemorate BLACK AUGUST at the 3rd Annual Freedom Fest on Saturday, August 19, 2023, on Everson Museum Plaza. The Fest from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. will include a pop-up market of 30+ vendors and food trucks Elbita’s Cocina, Yum Yum Shack and The Crab Ladies!
From 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., there is an outdoor screening on the plaza of BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER. This event is FREE and open to the whole community!

Lessons in Living Otherwise ONLINE Screening + Q&A
2023-05-25 18:30 - 20:00 | ONLINE
Join us for an online screening of “Lessons in Living Otherwise”!
RSVP required

Lessons in Living Otherwise PROGRAM 1: Screening + Q&A
2023-04-19 19:00 - 20:30 | NY
Program 1: Wednesday, April 19 at 7pm in Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Bldg. (SU campus)
Light Work UVP presents two different film programs, both featuring the work of multimedia artists Sofía Gallisá Muriente and TJ Cuthand.
More Info and RSVP

Deborah Willis Keynote Lecture | Remarks on Light Work's 50th Anniversary
2023-04-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
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. This Event is free and open to the public.

Arko Datto: Shunyo Raja (Kings of a Bereft Land) Reception and Artist Talk
2023-04-06 17:00 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Arko Datto’s epic three-part series chronicles the lives of those living in the world’s largest delta, variously known as the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. Climate change has rapidly put this immense region and its inhabitants in danger. Even as the artist summarizes the complexity and scale of the challenges confronting both, he knows his time with this landscape is fleeting.

Artist Talk begins at 6:30 pm.

Photobook Night
2023-03-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY, 13210, United States
Come and share photobooks you love and we will do the same. This freeform hang with Director Dan Boardman and Associate Director Whitney Hubbs, (two huge photobook nerds) is for anyone interested in photography and photobooks. They will be sharing gems from their personal collections plus books from former Light Work Artists. Bring books you love and want to share and/or your books-in-progress. Pizza and napkins provided
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

50th Anniversary Opening Reception
2023-02-03 17:30 - 19:00 | Everson Museum Auditorium, 401 Harrison St., Syracuse, NY, 13202
Through a partnership with the iconic Everson Museum of Art, Light Work’s 50th Anniversary retrospective exhibition will be on view in two of the Museum’s main gallery spaces from January 28 through May 14, 2023. An opening reception and program will be held on Friday, February 3, 2023, from 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. Please Note: This event is free for Everson Museum members, $20 for non-members, and includes hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar.
Everson Museum Gallery C and D
Members free | Non-members $20
