Ithaca College

The 36th Annual Light Work Grants in Photography were recently awarded to Ron Jude, Yasser Aggour, and Lida Suchy.

The 36th Annual Light Work Grants in Photography were recently awarded to Ron Jude, Yasser Aggour, and Lida Suchy.

The Light Work Grants in Photography program is a part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to artists working in photography. Light Work awards grants to photographers, critics and photo historians who reside in Central New York. The grants also aim to foster an understanding and appreciation for photographic arts in the area.

The Light Work Grant is a fellowship that includes a $2,000 cash award, an exhibition at Light Work and publication in “The Light Work Annual.” 

Ron Jude

Jude’s series “emmett” features images made during his youth in his home state of Idaho. The photographs are focused around the idea of living an average, working-class life in a rural mountain town in the 1980s and the struggle of the inevitable, looming blue-collar life. According to Jude, “Edited here nearly 30 years later, the somewhat accidental, experimental body of work has the cohesive qualities of a dream—memories reorganized into a fictionalized narrative, imagery suffused with both an unsettling melancholy and the prismatic glow of youthful reverie.”

Jude received a B.F.A. from Boise State University and an M.F.A. from Louisiana State University. His work has been exhibited internationally. He is represented by Blind Spot Artist Representation in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and Gallery Luisotti in Santa Monica, Calif. He previously received a Light Work Grant in 2001.

Yasser Aggour

Aggour submitted photographs from two different series, “The Hunted” and “The History of Paradise.” In the images from “The Hunted,” Aggour collects photographs depicting hunters and the animals they have killed, and then manipulates them using imaging software to remove the hunter completely, resulting in portraits that defy easy categorization. In “The History of Paradise,” Aggour uses a collage technique to create images that, in his words, “transform the pedestrian into the seemingly mythic.” The images revolve around the themes of nature and destruction, violence and beauty, and death and immortality.

Aggour received both a B.A. in fine arts and a B.A. in political theory from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his M.F.A. from Yale University. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he is currently an assistant professor of photography in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Lida Suchy

Suchy received the Light Work Grant for her series “The Community Choir—Photographs by Lida Suchy.” The black-and-white portraits in this series, described by Suchy as “the antithesis to the celebrity portrait,” look closely at the members of the Syracuse Community Choir. The choir is based on the idea of inclusion and therefore offers brailled music, rides for people in wheelchairs and childcare, among other services, and always welcomes people from any race, ethnicity, gender, age and sexual orientation. According to Suchy, “The choir’s use of art and singing as tools to foster inclusiveness and community building are what initially inspired me to create these images.”

Suchy holds a B.A. from the University at Albany and an M.F.A. from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has received numerous grants and awards.