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Jeffrey Hoone, the now-former executive director of the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University, asked that Astria Suparak resign from her job as gallery director at The Warehouse Gallery at SU in March 2007. That following September Suparak received confirmation that she was being laid off. Suparak, however, was never given an explanation as to why, she told The Daily Orange.

“There were no complaints, no warnings, no detailing of wrongdoing, nothing about my performance being lacking and no performance review,” Suparak said in the statement to The D.O.

Before her unexpected layoff, Suparak said Hoone “commented about my size and clothing in a way that was dismissive and derisive. At a public event he said, in reference to my body, something like, ‘You are a delicate little flower.’”

Suparak said Hoone told her that she needed to hire a man for assistant director of the gallery, which she said she understood as him implying that, as a small woman, she needed a larger man to work beside her. She also said that she wasn’t surprised by the allegations against Hoone.

Fourteen years after she was laid off at The Warehouse Gallery — which has since been shut down — Suparak said she still believes that her layoff was unfair. She added that Hoone asked her to remove the word “feminist” from an exhibition that was originally supposed to be titled “AW, COME ON: Desire Under the Feminist Gaze.” When she elaborated that the artists featured were a part of the third-wave feminism movement, she said he voiced doubt that third-wave feminism existed. The exhibit title was eventually changed to “COME ON: Desire Under the Female Gaze.”

Hoone said in a statement to The D.O. that while he might have asked Suparak to explain language and concepts, he did not change the words of the exhibit or “interfere with her final artistic choices.”

Suparak said that she saw strong results that her work was going well from the campus communities, from Syracuse and from the art world nationally. She added that there were frequent requests from international art institutions — such as Liverpool John Moores University in the U.K. and Carnegie Mellon University — to bring The Warehouse Gallery’s exhibits to their locations, which made her layoff “even more baffling.”

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

Suparak first shared her claims in a Blogger channel dedicated to providing information on her “controversial dismissal.” Suparak wrote a post on the discussion board on Dec. 6, 2007, in which she details the lack of reasoning behind her layoff.

“My personnel file indicated no reason for my layoff and contained no performance review, no complaints and no warning,” she wrote in her 2007 Blogger post. “This indicates a lack of performance and personnel-related issues, and an avoidance of proper Human Resources procedures, highly contrasting the explanation widely distributed by SU administration, including Chancellor Nancy Cantor, that my dismissal was based on ‘confidential personnel issues.’”

Suparak recalled her experiences with Hoone from over 10 years ago in a written statement to The D.O. In addition to Suparak, former artists-in-residence, employees and board members such as former Light Work board member Neelika Jayawardane have spoken out to criticize Hoone given their experiences working under the former Light Work executive director.

“(Organizations) will protect their allies, and those who are in some way lucrative for the organisation and for each other’s positions,” Jayawardane said in an email statement to The D.O. “I believe this is what happened at Light Work, and with the administrators who chose to do nothing … until it was impossible for them to (do nothing).”

Hoone retired from his position in August after a year of remote work during the pandemic and dealing with the “distractions” caused by allegations at Light Work, he said in a statement to The D.O.

“I decided to retire in August with full university retirement benefits and a generous severance after 41 years of service,” Hoone said in his statement. “Despite all of these distractions, Light Work remains one of the most well-respected organizations in the country for its support of emerging artists and its ability to support these programs with integrity and success.”

Walker Blackwell, who worked at Light Work from 2013 to 2015, said he left the organization because of Hoone and the “nonfunctional space” that Light Work was.

Blackwell said that Hoone had sworn at him and other staff members during multiple meetings. He said that although Hoone’s behavior may be acceptable in some workplaces, for Light Work’s environment it was inappropriate and unfitting.

“I never swore AT staff members,” Hoone said in a written statement to The D.O. “I am an adult and sometimes used adult language as a point of emphasis or as an expression of disbelief or frustration.”

In his statement, Hoone said that Light Work is not an unstable workplace. He claimed that much of the information about his leadership has come from former board members Lisa Jong-Soon Goodlin and Jayawardane.

Complaints from Jayawardane and Jong-Soon Goodlin, as well as Jong-Soon Goodlin’s call for Hoone’s removal, led to investigations by the SU Human Resources department that concluded in December 2020, Hoone said in his statement. Hoone said the investigations found that “no punitive actions were necessary to be taken against (him).” The university did find, though, there needed to be more oversight at the board level, Hoone said.

Sarah Scalese, the senior associate vice president for university communications at SU, said the university cannot comment on the investigation of Light Work’s work environment or specific personnel meetings.

Rachel Fein-Smolinski, Light Work’s digital services coordinator from May 2017 to July 2019, said that Hoone became agitated at employees after they had made suggestions in a staff meeting for a workspace remodel that she said would increase accessibility. Fein-Smolinski said Hoone affirmed that Light Work was fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, so the suggestions were not implemented.

“There was a managerial emphasis on institutional appearances over maintaining a safe labor environment,” Fein-Smolinski said. “Sexism, racism and ableism in the arts and university community bled into the space.”

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

In a statement to The D.O., Hoone refuted these claims and said that the lab had gone through several renovations, and because Light Work is a university building, renovations — as well as ADA compliance — are decided by the Office of Campus Planning, Design, and Construction. He added that Light Work was working on lighting upgrades and more flexible workspaces which were unfinished when Fein-Smolinski left the organization in 2019.

Laura Heyman, the program director for the department of transmedia in SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, said that while she’s aware of conflict between Hoone and some staff members, she has seen great growth at Light Work under his leadership.

“I would describe him as someone who has dedicated most of his professional life to supporting artists by providing them with the resources, space and time necessary to make their best work and providing a range of venues through which to share that work,” Heyman said.

Suparak, however, said that Hoone would get “intensely angry,” which would make him red in the face and shake with rage. This was intimidating and made her scared of him, she said.

Blackwell said that Hoone’s anger pushed some board and staff members to leave the organization.

“(Some of those) who came in got out as quickly as they could after sensing something wasn’t right or coming into contact with him and pushing or requesting some information to be able to fulfill their job, and then hitting his refusal and swearing and rage,” Blackwell said.

Hoone said he sees himself as a “tough, but fair, boss” who held staff members to a high standard and quality of work. Vernon Burnett, Mike Greenlar and Glen Lewis — all current Light Work board members — did not reply when asked for comment on Light Work’s current status and management of Light Work under Hoone.

Jong-Soon Goodlin joined Light Work in 1999 as a copy editor for Contact Sheet magazine, which displays the latest work of emerging and mid-career artists from around the world, according to its website It wasn’t until she had a conversation with Hoone in September 2019 about financial discrepancies that he became angry and yelled at her. Although Jong-Soon Goodlin had heard rumors of Hoone’s anger from other staff members and was aware of previous staff members feeling that they had been pushed out of the organization, this was the first time she had experienced this behavior first hand, according to her website about the incident.

Since 1995 I was involved with @lightworkorg : as a Community Darkrooms member, a volunteer
helping Gary Hesse and then Mary Lee Hodgens, and the copyeditor for Contact Sheet.

— Lisa Goodlin (@lisagoodlin) July 11, 2021

“I was shocked, and I was scared,” Jong-Soon Goodlin said. “I don’t think most men understand how frightening it is to be a woman being screamed at by a man. I had to walk out of the meeting.”

Jayawardane said that she believed Light Work’s leadership was not doing enough to address what she saw as structural racism within the organization. She said that imperative conversations were not happening between leadership and members at Light Work. These conversations were regarding decisions that included funding, selection of artists-in-residence and choosing which artists receive platforms for exhibiting and speaking about their work.

She said that many people who were comfortable with an organization’s structure would not accept change because “that would most likely not be beneficial for them.”

As a woman of color, Jayawardane said that engaging in conversations regarding racism and other structural inequalities at Light Work was psychologically and intellectually taxing for her.

“Within my short time as a board member, I was forced to have several eye-watering conversations about these issues, where I was the minoritised woman, doing the … labour of attempting to educate resisting, but well-meaning (white) interlocutors,” she said in her statement.

Hoone said that Light Work has been recognized by national foundations such as the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts “for its commitment and leadership in the diversity of its artists programs.”

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

Jayawardane organized and was a part of a three-part webinar called “Photography, Power and the Ethics of Representation” that took place during September and October 2020 and November 2021. In the introduction for the panel’s webpage, she called out institutions that have a history of exclusionary and discriminatory practices. In a statement to The D.O., she said that the institution that she was referring to was Light Work.

In 2019, Light Work asked Jayawardane to introduce an Italian artist’s project that focused on the history of the Underground Railroad in upstate New York. She refused to introduce the project because she said it “was not only reproducing racist iconography but was also working in the tradition of white photographers examining their ignorance and unconscious racism through looking at and photographing Black people.”

She said that Light Work, as an organization, should do more to question artists and projects before they choose which artists to include.

Jayawardane said that over the course of 2019 and early 2020 she attempted to invite Light Work’s leadership to educate themselves through speakers who were Black, Indigenous or people of color about why certain projects deeply overlap with historical racism. She wanted them to understand why supporting those projects, as an institution, normalizes structural inequality.

Jayawardane described a “resistance” to identifying and correcting institutional issues and said her attempts to speak out were avoided.

“No matter how well I articulated and enumerated these concerns, there was polite pushback, avoidance, ceremonial support, and little in the way of practically supportive responses towards organising productive — and much needed — dialogues,” Jayawardane said. “It showed me that the ‘work’ that the organisation and its leadership needed to do — about which I was working exceedingly hard to bring to attention to — did not seem to be a priority.”

Megan Thompson | Design Editor

Jayawardane also said that in response to her proposals to mitigate structural racism, Light Work leadership told her how complicated fundraising would be and that “staff are already stretched thin” while they did not have the “bandwidth” for such a venture at the time.

“During one informal conversation, I was told that I ‘like to make (the directors and staff) do more work,’” she said.

Jayawardane said that on two separate occasions, Hoone and Shane Lavalette, Light Work’s director at the time, told her that asking the organizational leadership to consider the problematic structures that rewarded white, male artists when they produced work in a colonial and racist tradition was tantamount to “dangerous censorship.” She said she was put in a position of having to explain how this wasn’t true.

In response to Jayawardane’s concerns about structural racism at Light Work, Hoone said in a statement to The D.O. that Light Work leadership supported a public panel discussion in October 2019 that Jayawardane organized to address concerns related to the exhibit but not about Light Work programs in general. Lavalette did not respond to The D.O.’s request for comment.

“I was embarrassed that the institution’s leadership had not even publicly addressed the concerns I’d clearly identified or invited the audience to address their concerns – not that those who are minoritised should ever be put in that position – to explain racism,” Jayawardane said.

Complicated past

Jayawardane said that although her view has since changed given her experiences with the organization, she originally came to know Light Work as “a generous and generative space for artists, critical thinkers and scholars” with the capacity to progress.

“Light Work is fully capable of continuing this wonderful work — better, without being a corrupt organisation or being one that ignores its racist practices,” she said.

Fein-Smolinski said she hopes that Light Work’s future consists of a greater focus on worker’s rights, the review panel for the artist-in-residence program, hiring committees and the diversification of the board.

“I hope the support for workers is not just oversight from the university, but organized labor representation,” Fein-Smolinski said. “Current employees who I was fortunate to work with give me hope that the institution is changing as long as their experiences and needs are listened to.”

Deborah Willis, who was an artist-in-residence in 1990, said in a statement to The D.O. that the organization allowed her to explore her own work, an opportunity that she said is often ignored by other curators. She expressed how allegations against Hoone took attention away from Light Work’s purpose and vision.

“I was disappointed to read the statements made about him,” Willis said, “and it also reframes a history that focused on supporting photographers and ideas about community building that I never experienced.”

Fazal Sheikh, who was an artist-in-residence at Light Work in 1993, said the assertions made against Hoone and Light Work counter his understanding of the organization as a “harmonious atmosphere.” He said that “the level of embrace of the community, sense of camaraderie and serious engagement with the medium of photography that has been honed and perfected over the years by Hoone and his staff” is significant. He hopes that the opportunities at Light Work continue to grow as they foster conversation and support for artists.

“During these times of extreme and volatile division, and of recrimination, the memory of my encounters with the institution remind me that it was a space of sanctuary, as well as promise,” Sheikh said. “I do hope that the public complexity will be suitably resolved and that this exceptional resource may continue to expand, building upon its marked strengths in years to come.”

Photo illustration by Lucy Messineo-Witt

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this post stated that Jayawardane was part of a three-part webinar. She also organized it.

Published on December 2, 2021 at 4:26 am

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu