2025 Light Work Grant Recipients
Light Work announces the 50th annual Light Work Grants in Photography! The 2025 award recipients are Sarah Knobel, Joe Librandi-Cowan, and Lida Suchy. 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.
The two runner-ups for the 2025 Light Work Grants in Photography are Marna Bell and Adrian Francis.
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 judge was Marina Chao, curator at CPW in Kingston, NY.
A group exhibition of grant recipients’ work will be on view in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery, running from May 12th – August 29th, 2025. An Opening Reception will take place on Friday, July 25th from 5-7 PM.
Sarah Knobel
Sarah Knobel is an artist captivated by the concept of commodities and their existence beyond mere utility. Through her evocative imagery, she crafts liminal spaces, inviting viewers to contemplate the enigmatic nature of everyday objects and our waste. Her work weaves together optimism and hostility, beauty and repulsion, exploring the collision between the natural world and opposing forces. Her photographs and videos have been shown both nationally and internationally. Knobel resides in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border, and draws inspiration from the serene surroundings. She holds an MFA from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.
Joe Librandi-Cowan
Joe Librandi-Cowan received his BFA in Art Photography from Syracuse University. His work has been featured by the BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, and the Prison Photography project. This specific work subtly explores and attempts to make peace with notions of home—both internal and external—in a multitude of ways. It centers around my relationship with his mother and their home, serving as a space for working through various forms of familial trauma and healing, leaning into the different forms of love, acts of care, and memory.
Lida Suchy
Lida Suchy is a second-generation American, and often draws on that background as a source of inspiration in her creative work. She earned her MFA from Yale University just as the Soviet Union was collapsing and Ukraine was gaining its independence—a moment that would go on to shape the direction of her work. Suchy first traveled to Ukraine shortly after that historic shift, and over the past thirty years she has returned on and off to photograph—with support along the way from the Fulbright Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, NYFA, ArtsLink, and Light Work, among others.
