Thursday, November 5, 2026
Doors at 5:30pm. Artist talk at 6pm.
25 Dederick Street, Kingston, NY
On Thursday, November 5, in partnership with Light Work, we welcome Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler/Morris) to Meet the Artist. Sayler/Morris will present museum, an exhibition and photobook co-published by Gnomic Book and Light Work. The book and exhibition, made in collaboration with Christina Seely, consist of images made during the artists’ tenure as Smithsonian Artist Research Fellows, which coincided with the dismantling of the iconic dinosaur/fossil hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Granted rare access to the process of demolition, the artists photographed dinosaurs, dioramas, and displays as they were disassembled, crated up, and moved into storage. They also interviewed the museum’s paleontologists and scientific illustrator — whose work translates paleontological research into visual form — and photographed materials belonging to them. Collectively, these photographs reveal a museum not as a static repository of facts but as a place where knowledge is continually assembled, revised, and reimagined. The project is an anatomy of certainty and a portrait of knowledge under construction.
Following the presentation, Sayler/Morris will be signing copies of their book museum, which will be available for purchase. This event will be live-streamed on CPW’s YouTube page at 6pm.
Join us on select Thursday evenings at CPW, when we host illuminating talks with local and visiting artists. Meet the Artist allows the public to get to know new work, to hear about artistic processes, and to meet friends and other local artists. The evening takes place at CPW’s gallery at 25 Dederick Street in Kingston, NY. It is free and open to the public. Coffee, tea, and snacks are served.
Meet the Artist is made possible by generous grants from the Arnold & Augusta Newman Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris (Sayler/Morris) work with photography, video, writing, installation, and public art to examine the entanglement of human histories and living ecosystems. Their work is often place-based and focused on historical research.
They have been awarded numerous fellowships, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2023), the JGS Photography Fellowship (2023), the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (2026), the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2014), and the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2008). They are represented by Robert Mann Gallery in NYC and have exhibited broadly, including a permanent installation at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Light Work, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Southeast Center for Contemporary Art. Their archives are collected by the Center for Art and Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.
In 2006, Sayler/Morris co-founded The Canary Project, a studio that produced visual media and artworks to deepen public understanding of climate change. In 2021, they founded Toolshed, a platform for connecting ecological thought and action. Sayler currently teaches photography in the Department of Film and Media Arts at Syracuse University.
About Light Work:
Light Work was founded as an artist-run, non-profit organization in 1973. Its mission is to provide direct support through residencies, publications, exhibitions, a community-access digital lab facility, and other related projects to emerging and under-represented artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging.
Banner image © Sayler/Morris