Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Urban Video Project Presents Crystal Z. Campbell’s ‘Makahiya’

Wednesday, February 14, 2024, By News Staff
Share
Light Work

Light Work’s 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 Light Work 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.

About the Work

A woman admires a video that is being projected onto the side of a building.

An installation view of the original video, “Makahiya,” is projected onto the Everson Museum.

“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 “shame” or “shyness”, 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’s film is structured like intertwined vines. Digital video filmed on a recent trip to their mother’s 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’s paradoxical identity, from rampant “invasive” weed to medicinal plant, reflecting on photosynthesis, memory and the violent colonial impetus of regimented forgetting.

“Makahiya” is an excerpt from Campbell’s longer, forthcoming film project, “Post Masters.” This body of work is drawn from Campbell’s familial history–a 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.

About the Artist

Crystal Z Campbell 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—fragments 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’s 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’s 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.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • Newhouse Creative Advertising Students Win Big at Sports and Entertainment Clios
    Friday, May 30, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University Libraries’ Information Literacy Scholars Produce Information Literacy Collab Journal
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By Cristina Hatem
  • Syracuse Spirit on Display: Limited-Edition Poster Supports Future Generations
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By News Staff
  • Timur Hammond’s ‘Placing Islam’ Receives Journal’s Honorable Mention
    Tuesday, May 27, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University, Lockerbie Academy Reimagine Partnership, Strengthen Bond
    Friday, May 23, 2025, By News Staff

More In Arts & Culture

Syracuse Stage Hosts Inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival

Syracuse Stage is pleased to announce that the inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival will be held at the theatre this June. Formerly known as the Cold Read Festival of New Plays, the festival will feature a work-in-progress reading and…

Light Work Opens New Exhibitions

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…

Spelman College Glee Club to Perform at Return to Community: A Sunday Gospel Jazz Service June 29

As the grand finale of the 2025 Syracuse International Jazz Fest, the Spelman College Glee Club of Atlanta will perform at Hendricks Chapel on Sunday, June 29. The Spelman College Glee Club, now in its historic 100th year, is the…

Alumnus, Visiting Scholar Mosab Abu Toha G’23 Wins Pulitzer Prize for New Yorker Essays

Mosab Abu Toha G’23, a graduate of the M.F.A. program in creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences and a current visiting scholar at Syracuse University, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays…

School of Architecture Faculty Pablo Sequero Named Winner of 2025 Architectural League Prize

School of Architecture faculty member Pablo Sequero’s firm, salazarsequeromedina, has been named to the newest cohort of winners in the biennial Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young practitioners. “An…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.