The first time Carrie Mae Weems H鈥�17 came to 性视界, she was an emerging artist with a restless curiosity and a camera. That was in the early 1980s, when 鈥攖he internationally recognized artist residency program on the 性视界 University campus鈥攊nvited her to come and work. She did not yet know that the city, and the University, would shape her life in ways she could not have anticipated, including meeting her husband, photographer and Light Work director Jeffrey Hoone.

Nearly 45 years later, Weems has come full circle. Appointed in January 2020 as the University’s inaugural artist in residence, Weems spent six years weaving herself into the fabric of the institution she had first encountered as a young artist. She is now concluding that tenure, leaving behind a legacy as layered and far-reaching as the bodies of work that have made her one of the most celebrated artists of her generation.

鈥淐arrie Mae Weems鈥� work has long challenged the world to see with greater honesty and imagination, and she brought that same spirit to 性视界 University. Her presence here has strengthened our academic community in meaningful ways,鈥� says Candace Campbell Jackson, senior vice president and chief of staff to Chancellor Emeritus Kent Syverud. 鈥淲e thank her for her leadership, her artistry and the lasting imprint she has made on this campus. Carrie has defined possibilities for what the artist in residency can be, and for this we are truly grateful.鈥�

A Legendary Career

Over four decades, Weems has built a practice that spans photography, text, audio, video, installation and performance. Her series 鈥淔rom Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried鈥� repurposed 36 appropriated images from the 19th and 20th centuries to interrogate the relationship between African American subjects and photographic history. Her 鈥淜itchen Table Series鈥� turned domestic space into a stage for intimate, complex narratives of Black womanhood.

The institutions that hold her work read like a map of the world’s great museums: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery of Canada, among many others. In 2014, she became the first African American woman to receive a solo retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, a milestone she noted had arrived “really late in the day.” Rather than simply presenting her exhibition, she transformed the Guggenheim’s auditorium into a five-day convening of artists, thinkers and performers

Her honors include the 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2023 Hasselblad Award, the Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, the BZ Cultural Prize and the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts. In October 2024, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. presented her with the National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony, the highest honor the United States government bestows upon artists. She was the first African American female visual artist to receive it. Weems has installed a permanent work that will be featured in the Barack Obama Presidential Library, opening to the public in Chicago on June 19.

Yet for all the accolades, some of Weems’ most telling work during her 性视界 residency happened in studios, classrooms and conference rooms.

Mentorship Flowing in Both Directions

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, Weems went to her studio. She designed posters, billboards and campaigns that honored frontline workers. What began as a response to the situation in 性视界 became a national effort, eventually spreading worldwide. Shopping bags carrying text that she composed were distributed at food banks. Buttons, masks and murals went out by the thousands. Students were at the center of the work, packaging materials, designing alongside her and earning wages she insisted upon.

That insistence on reciprocity, on the idea that mentorship flows in both directions, threads through everything she did at the University. She founded the Institute of Sound and Style, a rigorous workshop for teenagers in 性视界 struggling against the weight of community violence.

Graduate students served as her assistants on the project, and she was candid about what she received in return. “As much as I found that I was helping them,” she said, “they were helping me as much as I was helping them. I’m not simply the giver. I’m also the receiver.”

In April 2024, she traveled to Florence to deliver a public lecture鈥�”Resistance as an Act of Love”鈥攖o students enrolled in the , reviewing the work of studio arts students there. She then brought eight of those students to Venice for the Black Portraitures conference, held in concert with the Venice Biennale.

Her “Monumental Concerns” convenings, which she organized through the University and were held at the Museum of Modern Art, drew hundreds of scholars, artists and thinkers into conversation about monuments, memory and contested public space.

Engaging Deeply

鈥淭hrough her residency, Carrie Mae Weems has created opportunities for 性视界 University to engage deeply with some of the most pressing cultural conversations of our time,鈥� says Miranda Traudt, the University鈥檚 assistant聽provost for strategic initiatives and director of arts. 鈥淏y bringing together artists, scholars and communities, she has helped make this campus a hub for dialogue that shapes contemporary art and culture.鈥�

At the celebration marking the close of her residency, held March 16 at Light Work, Campbell Jackson reflected on what it had meant to work alongside her. “You’ve shown us how essential creativity is to the strategic future of this institution,” she said, “and to our broader society.”

Weems herself was characteristically humble. “I never think that I’m doing anything that is important,” she said. “I just feel that I need to work at things that matter to me, that uplift me, that inspire me, that carry me.”

The has received a significant gift of more than 25 works by 16 artists from the collection of Nancy Delman Portnoy.

A New York-based collector, gallerist and educator, Delman Portnoy’s collection focuses on artists addressing political and social issues across a wide range of media. She has held board positions at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School. The gift was facilitated by alumna Elizabeth 鈥淟iz鈥� C. Tenenbaum 鈥�98.

The donation transforms the museum鈥檚 holdings in lens-based media and broadens its representation in painting and contemporary voices. Highlights of the gift include works by Rashid Johnson, John Waters, Shimon Attie, David Goldblatt and Abel Barroso.

Johnson鈥檚 鈥淕reen Belt鈥� (2009), a large-scale photograph of the artist鈥檚 father wearing a newly awarded taekwondo belt and seated against a bookshelf with a CB radio perched on it, offers a nuanced portrait of a soon-to-be-father鈥檚 self-exploration during the social upheaval of the 1970s.

“Rashid Johnson is one of the most incisive artists working today, and this early photograph encapsulates so many of the ideas he has explored throughout his career鈥擝lackness, family, home life, community, literacy and access to sport,鈥� says Art Museum Curator Melissa Yuen. 鈥淭he wide-ranging conversations that a single work of art can encourage is the hallmark of what we do at 性视界. We aim to acquire works that spark conversations across disciplines, and this incredible gift further develops our vision for the collection.

The gift also includes eight works by filmmaker and artist John Waters, whose photography draws from and recontextualizes iconic film imagery. The works by Waters present opportunities for collaboration with campus programs in film and media arts.

Other works turn a creative lens on histories that happen on local, neighborhood levels. Shimon Attie鈥檚 鈥淟asers Writing Out (in Yiddish) Jewish Senior鈥檚 Sleeping Dream鈥� (1998) is part of his celebrated public art project which used animated laser projection to inscribe the personal and collective memories of immigrant residents onto the architecture of their neighborhood on Manhattan鈥檚 Lower East Side.

David Goldblatt鈥檚 鈥淪unset over the Playing Fields of Tladi, Soweto, Johannesburg, August 1972,鈥� (1972) photographed during the apartheid era, is a striking example of Goldblatt鈥檚 commitment to documenting everyday life in apartheid South Africa. Goldblatt鈥檚 photograph is currently on view at the in New York City as part of the exhibition 鈥淣ew In: Recent Acquisitions at the 性视界 University Art Museum鈥� through June 4.

The gift advances the museum鈥檚 commitment to a collecting philosophy that fosters interdisciplinary teaching and research across the University, with particular focus on programs and institutions that include and the in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

鈥淭his gift is transformative鈥攆or our collection, and for the students and faculty who learn with it. When a collector of Nancy Delman Portnoy’s vision chooses to place works at an academic museum, it reflects a deep belief in the power of art to educate,鈥� says Art Museum Director Emily Dittman. 鈥淭hese artists speak directly to the interdisciplinary, socially engaged teaching that defines 性视界 University, and expand our ability to teach across disciplines in meaningful ways.鈥�

The 性视界 University Art Museum stewards a collection of more than 45,000 objects spanning 4,000 years of world art and serves as a teaching laboratory for students, faculty and the broader community. For more information on the museum, including current and upcoming exhibitions and programs, .

Nine faculty members in the (VPA) and five Universitywide organizations are among more than 2,400 nonprofit arts and culture organizations and individuals receiving (NYSCA) funding for 2026. NYSCA recently.

The following organizations received Support for Organizations awards totaling $110,000 to assist with general operations:

• , $10,000
• , $25,000
• , $10,000
• , $40,000
• , $25,000

Support for Artist awards of $10,000 each were also announced for these faculty members:

• , professor, Department of Film and Media Arts, for the project 鈥淎phrodite鈥檚 Conception鈥�
• , assistant professor, Department of Film and Media Arts, supporting the Light Work project 鈥淏y the Skin of Her Teeth鈥�
• , associate professor, Department of Film and Media Arts, for 鈥淏y All Your Memories鈥�
• , associate professor, Department of Film and Media Arts, for 鈥淢id-Film Crisis,鈥� presented with New York Women in Film & Television
• , assistant professor, School of Art, for 鈥淒emigoddess Comic Series鈥�
• , associate professor, Setnor School of Music (in VPA) and School of Education, for 鈥淲e Hold These Truths: Commemorating the 250th Birthday of The United States of America鈥�
• , assistant professor, Department of Drama, for the project 鈥淲olf Women鈥�
• , instructor in the School of Art, for the work 鈥淣ight Field,鈥� presented at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park.

In addition, , associate professor in the School of Art, in collaboration with Columbia University faculty members Lynnette Widder and Wendy Walters, received a for the book initiative, 鈥淪eeds of Diaspora: Plants, Migrations, Settlements, Cities.鈥� The grant program, a partnership between NYSCA and The Architecture League of New York, recognizes work in architecture, historic preservation and various fields of design.

Light Work has two new exhibitions, “The Archive as Liberation” and “2025 Light Work Grants in Photography, that will run through Aug. 29.

“The Archive as Liberation”

The exhibition is on display in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work, 316 Waverly Ave. in 性视界. An opening reception will take place at Light Work on July 25 from 5-7 p.m.

The exhibition is 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. The exhibition includes work by Andre Bradley, Chisato Hughes, Alec Kaus, calista lyon, Raymond Thompson Jr., Harrison D. Walker, Wendel A. White and Savannah Wood.

鈥淭he 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,” says Turner.

2025 Light Work Grants in Photography

The 2025 recipients are Sarah Knobel (St. Lawrence County), Joe Librandi-Cowan (Onondaga County),
and Lida Suchy (Onondaga County). The runners-up are Marna Bell (Onondaga County)
and Adrian Francis (Onondaga County).

This year鈥檚 judge was Marina Chao (a curator at CPW in Kingston, NY), who writes: 鈥淔rom an
unexpected approach to plastic waste to portraits of Ukrainian civic leaders to an exploration of
home, family and memory, this year鈥檚 grantees address subjects that are intimate and personal,
urgent and political, in innovative, collaborative and deeply felt ways.鈥�

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 50-mile radius of 性视界.
Established in 1975, the Light Work Grants are among the oldest photography fellowships in the
country. An opening reception will be held in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work on July 25
from 5-7 p.m.

Summer gallery hours are: Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For general information, please
visit www.lightwork.org or call (315) 443-1300.

Light Work鈥檚 Urban Video Project will present the exhibition “Lines of Flight” featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles. The exhibition explores the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run from Feb. 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 性视界 University Museum in the show “” through May 10, 2025.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Minaya and Charles will be present for a screening and Q&A on聽Thursday, March 20, at 6:30 p.m. in Watson Theater across from Light Work鈥檚聽 galleries.

“Labadee”
Joiri Minaya

“Labadee” is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we鈥檙e seeing.

It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus鈥� Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization.

“Fly, Fly Sadness”
Miryam Charles聽

In this film, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A聽 journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed.

性视界 the Artists

is a Dominican-U.S. multidisciplinary artist whose recent works focus on destabilizing historic and contemporary representations of an imagined tropical identity. Minaya attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales in Santo Domingo (2009), Altos de Chav贸n School of Design (2011) and Parsons the New School for Design (2013). She has participated in esteemed residency programs such as Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Smack Mellon, NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists, Vermont Studio Center, and Fountainhead. She has received numerous awards, fellowships and grants, including NYSCA/NYFA, Jerome Hill, Socrates Sculpture Park, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, amongst other organizations.

is a Haitian-Canadian director, producer and cinematographer living in Montreal. She has produced several short and feature films. Her films have been presented in various festivals internationally. Her first feature film, “Cette Maison” (This House), was presented at the Berlinale, the AFI film festival and was included in the TIFF Top 10 of the year. Several of her short films and her feature are available to stream on the Criterion Channel. Her work explores themes related to exile and the legacies of colonization.

Light Work will present “Mater si, magistra no,” a solo exhibition by Nabil Harb, through April 25 in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, 316 Waverly Ave. in 性视界. An opening reception will take place in on Thursday, Jan. 23, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gallery.

“Mater si, magistra no,” (a macaronic phrase that translates as 鈥淢other yes, teacher no鈥�) presents a series of black-and-white photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within Harb’s hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, Florida. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb鈥檚 visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography鈥檚 formal language into a conceptual idea鈥攁n idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words.

鈥淭he landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index鈥攊t holds our histories, our secrets, our failures and our hopes for the future,” Harb says.

Harb uses his camera to look rather than gaze at wily scenes and moving bodies; his images disturb the before and after of a photograph by showing a moment extended or an instant flashed with a strobe. The narratives in this work are conflicting and intermingle with one another. The overriding story is one of man versus nature, of beauty and destruction coexisting in an atmosphere that is surreal, seductive and breathtaking. Where the conflicting notions of destruction and rebirth intersect is also the point at which Harb鈥檚 formalism and conceptual photographic practice meet, showing us the potential for beauty in destruction and foreboding rebirth.

Harb is a Palestinian American photographer born and raised in Polk County, Florida, where he still lives. Harb received his in聽 bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida and his master of fine arts degree in photography from Yale University. His work has been featured in Aperture, The Atlantic, ArtReview, The Guardian and A24.

2025 B.F.A. Art Photography Annual

Light Work is also presenting the 2025 B.F.A. 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 性视界 University. The exhibiting artists are Maxine
Brackbill, Charles Lavion, Kelsey Quinn Leary, Lili Moreno Martel, Shawn McCauley and Hazel
Wagner.

Each spring, seniors in the art photography program have the opportunity to exhibit a selection
of images from their senior thesis projects at Light Work. The senior thesis is a yearlong,
in-depth photographic exploration of a subject chosen by each student. The subjects of these
projects are wide-ranging, from very personal explorations of family and selfhood to sharp and
humorous experiments playing with the boundaries of fashion and studio photography. Students
choose, edit and print the images in collaboration and with the assistance of Light Work鈥檚
curatorial staff and master printers.

“The B.F.A. Art Photography Annual is not only the first exhibition for many of the students in the Art Photography program, but also an important learning opportunity for them,” says Laura Heyman, associate professor of art photography. “In addition to giving students the space to imagine how the
images they create might exist beyond the walls of the university, the Art Photography Annual
introduces their work to their peers, the local community, and the renowned curators and critics.”
who jury the exhibition.鈥�

Bruno Ceschel, founder of Self Publish Be Happy,聽 served as juror and selected Brackbill鈥檚 images for Best in Show.

鈥淢axine Brackbill鈥檚 photographs address identity through lenses of gender, race and familial contexts, presenting biographies that are deeply personal yet universally relevant. These narratives emerge at a time when there is a growing visibility for diverse perspectives, but also an environment that feels increasingly hostile,” says Ceschel. “One particularly striking image of Maxine standing in water, confronting the viewer with a gaze that asserts her new body and new life, feels both vulnerable and defiant.鈥�

An opening reception will take place in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work on Jan. 23 from 5 to 7 p.m.

Light Work鈥檚 Urban Video Project (UVP) is pleased to present the exhibition of “This Side of Salina” by
filmmaker Lynne Sachs, exploring reproductive justice from Oct. 12 to Dec. 21 at UVP’s architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade in downtown 性视界.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Sachs will be joined by members of the feminist filmmaking
group The Abortion Clinic Film Collective and local reproductive justice advocates for
“Communities of Care: Documenting Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Country,” a film
screening and panel talk at Light Work (316 Waverly Ave., on the SU campus) on Thursday,
Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m.

性视界 “This Side of Salina”

Four Black women from 性视界, New York, reflect on sexuality, youthful regret, emotional vulnerability, raising a daughter and working in reproductive health services. In a series of their own choreographed vignettes, each woman thoughtfully engages with the neighborhoods she鈥檚 known all of her life. Two performers flip through classic 1960s titles by Black authors in a bookstore. Others sit in a hat store finding time to pour into each other, as mentors and confidantes. These are businesses that are owned by local Black women, and they know it. In Brady Market, a community grocery, they playfully shop and chat with ease and confidence. They dance to their own rhythms in the outdoor plaza of the Everson Museum of Art. Together they look down at the city from its highest point and ponder how to battle the inequities of the place that they call home.

Sachs is an American experimental filmmaker and poet based in Brooklyn, New York.
Working from a feminist perspective, she has created cinematic works that defy genre through
the use of hybrid forms, incorporating elements of documentary, performance and collage into
self-reflexive explorations of broader historical experience. Her films have screened at the
Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, Wexner Center for the Arts, and festivals such as New
York Film Festival, Oberhausen Int鈥檒 Short Film Festival, Punto de Vista, Sundance, Viennale
and Doclisboa. Retrospectives of her work have been presented at Museum of the Moving
Image, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Cork Film Festival, Havana Film Festival, among others. In 2021,
both Edison Film Festival and Prismatic Ground Film Festival at the Maysles Documentary
Center gave her awards for her lifetime achievements in the experimental and documentary
fields. In 2014, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts. In 2019, Tender
Buttons Press published her first book of poetry, 鈥淵ear by Year Poems.鈥�

Related Programming

All programs are free and open to the public.

“Living to Tell: Using Filmmaking as a Tool for Reproductive Justice”
Wednesday, Oct. 16 at 5:30 p.m.
Salt City Market Community Room, 484 S. Salina St.
484 S. Salina St.
Free,

“Communities of Care: Documenting Reproductive Justice in a Post-Roe Country”
Thursday, Oct. 17,聽 5:30 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Theater, 316 Waverly Ave.

Communities of Care is sponsored by the 性视界 University Humanities Center as part of
性视界 Symposium 2024-25: Community and by the Lender Center for Social Justice.
at 性视界 University. This program is also partnered with the Department of Women鈥檚 and
Gender Studies and the CODE^SHIFT lab in the Newhouse School, both at 性视界
University.

Living to Tell is co-presented with Engaged Humanities Network, an engaged scholarship
initiative of 性视界 University.

A yearlong reimagining of ways to distinguish and enhance the array of arts and cultural programming offered at the University has resulted in a name change for the 聽Coalition of Museums and Art Centers, a new website and a new strategic plan.

Under the new banner Arts at 性视界 University, are top-notch museums and galleries, active maker spaces, robust community centers and a myriad of creative events and programs.

The new name is part of a rebranding and profile-boosting effort to highlight the University鈥檚 arts offerings and strengthen and grow awareness of its diverse group of centers and programs, says , assistant provost for arts and community programming.

The initiative includes the , which comprehensively illustrates the range of arts centers and programming available to students, faculty, staff and community members. The site also includes a dedicated that highlights events, ongoing programs and exhibitions.

Spaces and programs include , , , , , , at 性视界 University Libraries, , the , 性视界 University Artist-in-Residence Program and the in New York City.

New ideas about how academic and community arts programming and experiences are presented to a range of constituencies鈥攕tudents, faculty, staff and the general public鈥攁nd as part of student experiential learning, teaching activities and individual entertainment and enjoyment resulted from a year-long planning process spearheaded by the , Traudt says.

鈥淭his is much more than a name change. It鈥檚 a true rethinking of the arts at 性视界 University,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e purposefully considered how all the individual units and centers that are doing such fantastic work on their own could band together to have greater overall impact and visibility and to create wider local, regional, national and international awareness of these exceptional offerings.鈥�

In addition to enhancing the visibility of the separate arts programs and centers, Arts at 性视界 University highlights how, grouped together, the units offer distinctive experiential learning opportunities for students that are typically available only at much larger national and international venues, Traudt says.

鈥淭he 性视界 University Art Museum has one of the largest university-owned art collections in the country. La Casita, as a vital part of the 性视界 Near West Side community, is the only Latin cultural center in this part of New York state. The Community Folk Art Center is a vibrant seat of community programming for people of all ages. Light Work鈥檚 renowned Artist-in-Residence Program has hosted more than 400 artists coming from every U.S. state and 15-plus countries. Urban Video Project is an important international venue for the public presentation of video and electronic arts and one of the few projects in the U.S. dedicated to continuous and ongoing video art projections. Exhibitions of nationally and internationally known artists hosted here mean you don鈥檛 have to travel to New York City to see that kind of artistic excellence.鈥�

Elisa Dekaney, associate provost for strategic initiatives, makes this comparison. 鈥淲e pride ourselves on the fact that the University鈥檚 study-abroad programs utilize their locations as classrooms. We say, 鈥楩lorence is our classroom; London is our classroom鈥� because of what these cities offer in the arts and cultural experiences. But we can also say 鈥樞允咏� is our classroom鈥� because of the rich arts programming the University offers right here.鈥�

Other goals defined in the strategic operating plan include serving as an international model of arts and humanities engagement for institutions of higher education; expanding community partnerships; growing reciprocal relationships with local, regional, national and international arts and strategic partners; increasing faculty, alumni and donor engagement with the arts programs and centers.

Light Work presents “Asea,” an exhibition of new works by Nicholas Muellner. The exhibition opens Tuesday, Sept. 3, and will run through Friday, Dec. 13. An opening reception will take place in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery on Thursday, Sept. 19, from 5-7 p.m.

In this exhibition, Muellner offers up photographs depicting people pantomiming in a verdant landscape made complex with surreal lighting; these images are paired with an issue of Contact Sheet that serves as a guidebook to the exhibition. The text in Contact Sheet is wryly poetic and succinct, and loosely leads us from picture to picture. “Asea” takes us somewhere without making its destination specific, setting a tone and mood that guides our desire for meaning but refuses to precisely locate it.

The exhibition conveys a type of suspended drama via an installation that divides the gallery into two rooms, creating an atmosphere in which viewers float, both in space and time. The majority of the portraits are of people connected to the maritime economy and all of the photographs were made in a landscape or setting that the subjects live in: Marseille, Odesa, Milan, Long Beach. The subjects gesture toward the camera, holding the invisible tools of their respective trades, and suggesting an estrangement from their concrete identities.

With “Asea,” Muellner projects a state of limbo and a search for personal meaning within photography鈥檚 inevitable narrative limits. We are asked to ponder alone, in a subjective state that is not fixed but which hovers within the parameters established by the photographs and text. Ultimately, we engage with “Asea” because it is at once thoughtful, beautiful and curious.

Artist Bio

Muellner is an artist and writer whose books include “Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography,” “The Amnesia Pavilions” and “In Most Tides an Island,” which was shortlisted for the Paris Photo鈥揂perture PhotoBook Award and named a Best Book of the Year in Artforum. In addition to solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, his writing has been published by MACK/SPBH, Aperture, Radius, Triple Canopy, Foam, and Routledge, among others. Muellner has performed slide lectures internationally, including at MoMA PS1, Carnegie Museum, The Photographers鈥� Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, a John Gutmann Fellowship and residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. Muellner received a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. from Temple University. He is the founding co-director of the Image Text MFA and ITI Press at Cornell University.

Light Work鈥檚 Urban Video Project (UVP) is pleased to present the exhibition “Unseen/forgotten: An ode to the humble landscape | Invisible/olvidado: Oda al paisaje humilde” from July 18-Sept. 28 at its architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade.

In conjunction with the exhibition, artist Paulina Vel谩zquez Sol铆s will be present for a live performance on the Everson Plaza on July 26 at 8:30 p.m.

性视界 the Exhibition

“Unseen/forgotten: An ode to the humble landscape” is the continuation of a project Vel谩zquez Sol铆s developed during the pandemic. She found herself in a new environment in Brooktondale, New York, surrounded by a creek where the change of pace and isolation brought via COVID accentuated the sound perception of the river, and its presence as a neighbor and living entity.

This sonic connection was similar to her home in Costa Rica, which is also next to a river, making the sound and the experience of the river both grounding and nostalgic. This project, which includes interactive and performance-based elements, explores Central New York as a site of 鈥減ost-industrial natural wonder,鈥� using regionally extinct species in local herbaria as tools to meditate on 鈥渢he tension between what prevails and what has shifted or disappeared鈥� in a field of 鈥渕emory, transformation and territory.鈥�

性视界 the Artist

(she/her) is a multimedia artist from Latinoamerica with an interest in the oddities hidden within nature and the body. She was born in Puebla, Mexico, and grew up between Mexico and Costa Rica, where she went to art school. She works in diverse mediums, including installation, sculpture, drawing, animation and multimedia performance.

She graduated with a degree in art and visual communication in printmaking at Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica and obtained an M.F.A. in new genres from the San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright Scholar. She moved to Ithaca, New York, in 2018 and is currently a faculty member in the art department at Cornell University and Ithaca College.

Her work has been shown around the world, including at the Museo de Arte y Dise帽o Contempor谩neo and TEOR/茅Tica in Costa Rica, Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in M茅xico City, Museo de Arte in San Salvador, Torino Contemporanea in Italy, La Casa de las Am茅ricas in Havana, Cuba, Mengi in Reykjavik, Iceland, Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., UCLA Biennial in Los 脕ngeles and the Berkeley Art Museum in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To request high-resolution images for press reproduction and interviews, contact Cali Banks, Light Work communications coordinator, at cali@lightwork.org.

UVP programs are made possible by a Tier Three Project 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 Light Work programs are made possible by the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

will present “,” a group exhibition, through Aug. 16 in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, 316 Waverly Ave, on the 性视界 University campus.

“According to the Laws of Chance” is a group exhibition showcasing 11 artists whose work embraces chance as a core element of their image-making. The photographers in this exhibition embrace the unpredictable and find ways to amplify chance to suit their own conceptual and creative needs.

The artists in this exhibition are Cheryl Miller, Claire A. Warden, Jaclyn Wright, Josh Thorson, Kyle Tata, Louis Chavez and Will Stith, and Light Work鈥檚 collection artists Cecil McDonald, Jr., James Welling, Peter Finnemore and Rita Hammond.

An opening reception will take place in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light Work on July 26 from 5-7 p.m.

性视界 “According to the Laws of Chance”

Chance is a core tenet of photography. The image-makers in this exhibition embrace the unpredictable and find ways to amplify chance for conceptual and creative purposes. These artists interpret chance via darkroom and analog experimentation, conceptually driven exploration, daily image-making and studio-based arranging. The results of these methods are surprising expressions of each artist’s voice. Together they showcase the wide-ranging use of chance and highlight it as a vital tool in contemporary photographic practice.

2024 Light Work Grants in Photography

Light Work announces an exhibition featuring works of the winners of聽 the . The 2024 award recipients are Malik Abdoulmoumine, Rosely Htoo and Kari Varner. The two runner-ups are Alex Cassetti and Ian Sherlock Molloy.

The exhibition will be on display through Aug. 16 in Light Work’s Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery. An opening reception will take place July 26 from 5-7 p.m.

The grants are part of Light Work鈥檚 ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography within a 50-mile radius of 性视界.

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鈥檚 judges were Sydney Ellison, Lacey McKinney and Darin Mickey.

General Information

Light Work鈥檚 galleries are located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., 性视界. Summer gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Light Work closes on all major holidays. Contact Light Work to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab. Follow Light Work on Facebook and Instagram. For general information, please visit www.lightwork.org, call 315.443.1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Parking Information

Paid parking is available in the Comstock Avenue Garage at the intersection of Comstock and Waverly Avenues, diagonally across the street from Light Work. There is also metered parking in front of聽 Bird Library, on Walnut Avenue and on Comstock Avenue across from the Comstock Avenue Garage. Visit parking.syr.edu for more information on parking and directions to the galleries.

Curated from the collection, members of the 性视界 University campus community are invited to check out a selection from two of Dawoud Bey鈥檚 photographic projects: “An American Project,” and “Embracing Eatonville.”

Black-and-white images from “An American Project,” made in 性视界 in 1985 during Bey’s artist residency at Light Work, chronicle the community and history of South Salina Street. These prints were recently gifted by Bey and Stephen Daiter Gallery to celebrate the dedication of the Jeffrey J.Hoone Gallery.

“Embracing Eatonville” was a photographic survey of Eatonville, Florida鈥攖he oldest Black-incorporated town in the United States鈥攖hat featured work by Bey, Lonnie Graham, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis, and was exhibited at Light Work in 2003. Bey
made color photographs of high school students combining their portraits with text sharing personal hopes, fears, and dreams.

鈥淚 was invited to do a residency at Light Work in 1985, after being introduced to the organization by my friends, photographers Michael Spano and Sy Rubin. Applying and being accepted has remained an important highlight of my career almost forty years later,” Bey says. “It was the first time I was also able to have the kind of absolute support that allowed me to have what is still one of my most productive months ever as an artist. That support was something that I鈥檇 never experienced before, and it allowed for a profound burst of creative activity, going out into the 性视界 community every day to make photographs without the worry about how that investment of time would be remunerated.鈥�

The projects will be on display in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work (316 Waverly Ave.) from March 18 through May 17.

Light Work鈥檚 Urban Video Project (UVP) is pleased to present the exhibition of Crystal Z Campbell’s original video, “Makahiya,” on display from Feb. 22 through June 1 at their architectural projection site on the north facade of the Everson Museum of Art.

This exhibition features new work by Campbell, commissioned by for exhibition at UVP. Campbell was in-residence at Light Work in June of 2023 to create this work.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Crystal Z Campbell will present a special in-person event on Thursday, March 21 at 6 p.m. in the Everson Museum auditorium.

性视界 the Work

“Makahiya” is an original video by Crystal Z Campbell, commissioned by Light Work for the UVP architectural projection. Campbell was in-residence at Light Work in June of 2023.

“Makahiya,” a Tagalog word that translates to 鈥渟hame鈥� or 鈥渟hyness鈥�, is Campbell’s latest short experimental film. Rooted in botanical research on a plant that displays the unusual trait of thigmonasty, or touch-induced movement, Campbell鈥檚 film is structured like intertwined vines. Digital video filmed on a recent trip to their mother鈥檚 ancestral homeland in the Philippines mingles with hand-drawn animations, manipulated photographs and archival news coverage of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo and its aftermath. “Makahiya” explores this seemingly sentient plant鈥檚 paradoxical identity, from rampant 鈥渋nvasive鈥� weed to medicinal plant, reflecting on photosynthesis, memory and the violent colonial impetus of regimented forgetting.

“Makahiya” is an excerpt from Campbell鈥檚 longer, forthcoming film project, “Post Masters.” This body of work is drawn from Campbell鈥檚 familial history鈥揳 Black military father formerly stationed in the Philippines and Filipinx mother hailing from the archipelago, who both retired from the U.S. Post Office. Campbell explores both explicit and implicit traces of labor, landscape, love and bodies as intimate agents, modes, and witnesses of empire ripe for decolonizing through the unraveling of sound, image and cinematic time.

性视界 the Artist

is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker and writer of Black, Filipinx and Chinese descent whose works center around the underloved. Working through archives and omissions, Campbell finds complexity in public secrets鈥攆ragments of information known by many but under-told or unspoken. Select honors include a Creative Capital award, Guggenheim Fellowship, Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, Pollock-Krasner Award, MacDowell, Skowhegan, Rijksakademie, and Whitney ISP. Campbell was a featured filmmaker at the 67th Flaherty Film Seminar and their works have been screened or exhibited at SFMOMA, Drawing Center, ICA-Philadelphia, Artists Space, MOMA, and Block Museum amongst other venues. Their short film, “REVOLVER,” received the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and was featured in the Berlinale Expanded Film Forum. Campbell鈥檚 writing is featured in two artist books published by Visual Studies Workshop Press, and contributions to World Literature Today, Monday Journal, GARAGE, Hyperallergic and Beacon Press. Campbell鈥檚 work will have a solo exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum in the fall of 2024 as the recipient of the Freund Fellowship. Campbell is currently an associate professor of art and media study at the University at Buffalo.

Light Work has been awarded a $35,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The grant for Light Work is one of 958 Grants for Arts Projects awarded as part of the NEA’s first round of fiscal year 2024 grants.

“The NEA is delighted to announce this grant to Light Work, which is helping contribute to the strength and well-being of the arts sector and local community,鈥� says National Endowment for the Arts Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, Ph.D. 鈥淲e are pleased to be able to support this community and help create an environment where all people have the opportunity to live artful lives.鈥�

The grant will support Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Light Work invites between 12 and 15 artists to 性视界 to devote one month to creative projects every year. Over 400 artists have participated in Light Work鈥檚 Artist-in-Residence Program, and many of them have gone on to achieve international acclaim.

The residency includes a $5,000 stipend, a furnished artist apartment, 24-hour access to its state-of-the-art facilities and generous staff support. Work by each artist-in-residence is published in a special edition of Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual, along with an essay commissioned by Light Work.

Work by former artists-in-residence is also part of the Light Work Collection.

鈥淲e are thrilled to have the continued support of the National Endowment for the Arts to support our Artist-in-Residence Program,鈥� says Dan Boardman, director of Light Work. 鈥淭he NEA has been a cornerstone in building the AIR program. With this funding we offer artists a unique experience to develop new and exciting work in lens based media. We are truly grateful.鈥�

For more information on other projects included in the NEA鈥檚 grant announcement, visit .

Debuting at Light Work on Friday, Jan. 19, is Sophia Chai鈥檚 “.” The exhibition is comprised of photographs that are a return to Chai’s mother tongue, Korean. In these studio-made images, Chai references these written characters and enacts three key ideas of language, optics and photography.

An opening reception will take place in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at on Thursday, April 4, from 6-7 p.m. There will be a public lecture beforehand in Watson Theater from 5-6 p.m. The exhibition will run through Friday, May 17.

This event is part of the 性视界 University Humanities Center鈥檚 20th annual 性视界 Symposium, focused on a 鈥淟andscapes鈥� theme for 2023-24.

鈥淲hile being carried on the back of my mother in our neighborhood of Busan, I would point at the signs and repeat the words that Mom would read to me,” says Chai. “Soon I was able to read without understanding all of the words. The ease of learning to read the Korean alphabet is because there is a certain logic. The shapes of the vowel characteristics, for instance, correlate with how open or closed you could make the inside space of your mouth in making each word. Each character is a picture diagram of the space inside the mouth.鈥�

In 1987, Chai immigrated to New York City from South Korea as a teenager without knowing English. Looking back, she has described that experience as feeling untethered to any internal compass that she could use to navigate her place in a new country with a new language. She visually explains these experiences by reinterpreting the Korean language鈥檚 characters in photographs that enable us to see the contradictions of visual and verbal communication. Her images rest in the space between intellect and intuition.

Chai鈥檚 curiosity about the interior space of her tool鈥攖he large format camera, comparable to the interior space of a mouth鈥攍eads to the idea of the camera obscura, a darkened room with a small opening to the world. Chai uses optics (focal length, perspective, perception and magnification) to pin down the marks, rubbings and paintings on her studio walls. The overall effect is a collage of ideas, with an efficient yet complicated economy of picture making with intentional gaps. These gaps can describe the moment right before the sound of a word comes out of the interior space of the mouth. One鈥檚 mouth may understand and sound out words, but one鈥檚 conscious knowledge of their meaning may not be fully there yet. This liminal space is the punctuated strength and slippery ambiguity of her photographs.

Chai is an artist who remains open and disciplined, committing to the mindset of the child at odds with that of the adult. The photographs born from this are restrained but not withholding.

性视界 the Artist

was born in Busan, South Korea. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chai has presented her work widely at sites including the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Knockdown Center and multiple galleries. The city of Rochester and Destination Medical Center in Minnesota have commissioned her first permanent public outdoor art project to be completed in early 2024. Chai is represented by Hair+Nails Gallery. She lives and works in Rochester, MN.

Story by Cali Banks, communications coordinator, Light Work