LaJuné McMillian 2025
Duration: tbd

While in residence at Light Work in early 2025, media artists LaJuné McMillian and Manuel Molina Martagon worked with four local community-engaged creatives. Together, they discussed their practices and their visions for a liberated future. The artists asked them to embody their answers not only through words, but through movement as well. The Portal’s Keeper realizes those visions through the technological “portal” of a popular game engine better known for first-person shooter and battle royale MMO games. Here, the artists use this technology not to realistically simulate violence, but instead as a means to abstractly represent the energy we access and emit when we are able to move through the world freely.

This piece was created as part of the UVP Residential Media Arts Commission program.

About the Artists

Manuel Molina Martagon is a multidisciplinary artist working in performance, video and socially engaged projects. His work explores issues of immigration, labor, tradition, and access. He holds an MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from SVA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish from NYU. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, Spain, China, Cuba, and at institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and the Art Museum of the Americas in DC. He is a Fulbright recipient and has been an artist in residence at Recess, Santa Fe Art Institute and Artists Alliance.

LaJuné McMillian is a multidisciplinary artist and educator creating art that integrates performance, extended reality, and physical computing to question our current forms of communication. They are passionate about discovering, learning, manifesting, and stewarding spaces for liberated Black Realities and the Black Imagination and making room for different ways of being. McMillian has had the opportunity to show and speak at Pioneer Works, National Sawdust, Leaders in Software and Art, Creative Tech Week, and Art & Code’s “Weird Reality”. They have continued their research during residencies and fellowships at the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, NYU ITP, Barbarian Group, and Barnard College. Artist’s page: @_lovelaja

Sponsors

All UVP and Light Work exhibitions are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. This project was additionally supported by a NYSCA Support for Artists grant.

All UVP and Light Work programs are made possible with support from County of Onondaga, with the support of County Executive Ryan McMahon and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts.


RELATED EVENTS:


Build Your Own Portal: Motion Capture and Avatar Creation Workshop
Wed | Nov 5 | 6-8 p.m.
Community Folk Art Center


Enter the Portal: Building Liberated Worlds
Th | Nov 6 | 6-8 p.m.
Everson Museum of Art Auditorium


Corpórea Digital: Bilingual Workshop
Sat | Nov 8 | 12-4 p.m.
La Casita Cultural Center | Lincoln Building, 109 Otisco St.