The prestigious LIT Lighting Design Awards is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2020 Spotlight prize – Women in Lighting.
The LIT Lighting Design Awards was created to recognize the efforts of talented international lighting product designers and lighting implementers. The organization believes lighting is both an art and a science, and that it is one of the most important elements of design. LIT was envisioned to celebrate creativity and innovation in the fields of lighting products and applications.
In the organization’s most recent news, LIT Lighting Design Awards is thrilled to announce its 2020 Spotlight prize – Women in Lighting (WIL). WIL is an inspirational digital platform that profiles women working in the field of lighting design. The community platform promotes each women’s achievements, narrates their career path and goals, celebrates their work, and elevates their profile in the lighting community.
“Spotlight is a special prize that rewards an organization or project which carries out remarkable work for its community, and for being a major contributor in the lighting industry,” says the founder of LIT Lighting Design Awards, Mr. Hossein Farmani. “Women in Lighting exemplifies our expectations for Spotlight, as the project supports the important work of women in the industry by creating an inclusive environment in the profession. We couldn’t be prouder of this initiative and look forward to seeing their continued work into the future.”
Women in Lighting has been founded by Sharon Stammers and Martin Lupton, the team now consists of 70 ambassadors from 70 different countries around the world who aim to create a supportive and inspirational environment for women in the lighting industry.
When being informed of the Spotlight prize, Sharon Stammers shared “The WIL team are proud to accept this special award on behalf of all people who have participated in the project, the entire global WIL network and its supporters. It’s great to have the project recognized in this way as one of the main reasons for starting it were to raise the profile of women in lighting and to inspire others. We feel that this is working…”
Women in Lighting Founders: Sharon Stammers and Martin Lupton
About Women in Lighting
International lighting designers and light activists, Light Collective launched the project, Women in Lighting on International Women’s day in 2019. It is a celebratory project that set out to create an inspirational digital platform for women working in the architectural lighting industry to promote their passion and achievements, narrate their career path and goals, celebrate their work and elevate their profile in the lighting community.
Women in Lighting consists primarily of a website – www.womeninlighting.com – with a database of interviews with women from around the world. Starting with lighting designers, the scope has expanded to include women in all aspects of lighting – education, journalism, manufacturing, art and research. The project has already gathered support from individual female designers in over 70 different countries. These “ambassadors” are a point of contact in each location for other women seeking to find out more about the project. Initially started as it was evident that female participation in conferences, committees, juries and panels were underrepresented, the main aim was that as there are approximately 50% of female lighting designers, they get 50% visibility.
Women in Lighting is not about gender inequality but about inclusivity and how this is beneficial to the profession as a whole. The project is supported by formalighting and archifos.
For more information about Women in Lighting, please visit https://womeninlighting.com.
The Studio School of Design (SSD) is an interdependent community of practice where experiential learning is embedded into a curriculum of design storytelling. It celebrates the full range of human cultural expression and identity and especially supports those who are and have previously been marginalized or excluded from the design professions. They see lighting design as a creative art form and are deeply invested in the potential of telling diverse and inclusive human stories through the medium of light.
The Studio School of Design’s vision is to increase collective knowledge and diversify access to the lighting design field across the places where we work. The school is a 501c3 Not-For-Profit community organization, seeking to provide equitable and inclusive low-cost classes both online and in-person to a wide-ranging pool of talented and motivated students.
This year, the 2022 « Spotlight » prize has been awarded to The Studio School of Design for its engagements towards education accessibility, diversity, and inclusivity. SSD is providing affordable (or free) learning environments and educational programs, preparing emerging lighting designers for the broad range of today’s lighting careers.
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
The Studio School of Design began operations in the spring of 2021 with courses in Lighting for the Camera, Business Skills for Freelancers, Assisting with Large Scale Projects, and, importantly, a survey course of all the professions where designers work outside of the traditional theatre markets (65 students from 8 countries). They continued in the fall with courses in Video Content Creation and Pre-Visualization.
Additionally, they have offered free programs such as Pioneers of Light: The History of Women in Lighting Design (attended by over 80 online participants), Color and Light in a Mixed Source World, two Lighting Design Educator workshops for High School and University level instructors, and Networking events, both on Zoom and in person, to facilitate contact between designers, associates, directors, and choreographers. This spring (2023), the Studio School of Design will again offer Bob Barnhart’s highly successful Lighting for the Camera course, as well as courses in Vectorworks 3D and a Dance Lighting Intensive.
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
One of their most exciting initiatives has been the launch of our High School Summer Workshop, a pilot program attended by 13 high school students, primarily from underserved school districts, for 4 days in the summer of 2022 (video of Students sharing their experiences). With the support of the Chelsea Factory and other donors, students participated for free in hands-on training in designing and telling stories with light. They are currently in the advanced planning stages for an expanded multi-week program targeting 40 high school students for the summer of 2023.
The Studio School of Design continues to offer online courses through Zoom, making course materials available to a large group of learners from around the world. They will continue to do so in the future and are currently looking for a space in Manhattan where they can offer face-to-face courses on a regular basis. Their future plans include developing a curriculum program that will provide in-depth study in a variety of fields and career paths for lighting designers.
In total, over 200 students/participants have participated in online and face-to-face programs since April 2021; 25% of online participants have received scholarships and all high school participants have attended for free.
The Studio School of Design is led by an outstanding group of individuals who bring decades of experience in education, design, non-profit management, media, equity, diversity, inclusion, law, and the lighting industry. Studio School of Design faculty come from the professional community and are focused on recruiting a wide range of highly qualified professionals.
We spoke with Studio School of Design President Mark Stanley and Vice President Clifton Taylor about their plans for the future of this inclusive and multicultural learning environment.
MARK STANLEY – Director, President (Photo by Rosalie O’Connor) and CLIFTON TAYLOR – Director, Vice President, Secretary
“As professional designers and educators, Clifton and I are intimately connected to the intersection of both worlds. Studio School reflects our commitment to providing opportunities for affordable, accessible training in lighting design and related fields. By expanding the pathways to a successful and more diverse, inclusive, education and also providing a gateway to the professional world, we enrich our community and the stories we tell through light and design“, shared Mark Stanley.
Talking about the ways the public and the industry can support their work, Mark added that the “Studio School of Design is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. We rely on contributions to achieve our mission and provide the affordable, and often free, education that is our mission. As a young organization, we need the larger lighting and design communities’ support in order to expand and grow“.
Photo by Rosalie O’Connor
Looking at this coming year’s program, Mark added that “When it comes to their upcoming projects, this spring they are offering 3 courses online: Lighting Live Events for the Camera led by Bob Barnhart, Advanced Vectorworks 3D Drafting, led by Nick Solyom, and a Dance Lighting Intensive, led by Mark Stanley. In addition, Studio School of Design offers networking opportunities and educator training at both the high school and university levels. In the summer of 2023, they will expand their High School Summer Intensive in Lighting Design to a two-week program with the goal of reaching 40 high school students. In addition, they will offer their popular Associates and Assistant Lighting Designer course as well as Business Practices for Freelancers.”
About Mark Stanley: Resident Lighting Designer for New York City Ballet, Mark Stanley has designed over 220 premieres for their repertoire including Paul McCartney’s Ocean’s Kingdom. He has worked with choreographers around the world including Peter Martins, Alexei Ratmansky, Susan Stroman, Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck, William Forsythe, Kevin O’Day, Susan Marshall and many others. His designs are in the repertoire of nearly every major ballet company in North America and Europe and his designs for George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker and other ballets and operas have been seen on Live from Lincoln Center and Great Performances. Mr. Stanley previously served as Resident Designer for the New York City Opera. His theatre work includes the Kennedy Center, Long Wharf Theater, Goodspeed Opera House, Ordway Music Theater, Paper Mill Playhouse, Maurice Sendak’s Night Kitchen and off-Broadway. Mr. Stanley heads the Lighting Design Program at Boston University and is on the Board of Directors of the Hemsley Lighting Programs.
About Clifton Taylor: For over 34 years, Clifton Taylor has created lighting, projection and scenic designs for theater, dance and opera companies around the world. He has also designed a number of unique concert music events for major orchestras, solo musicians and large-scale venues. His work has been commissioned on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regionally, and in seventeen countries outside the US. Clifton teaches design as an associate professor at UNCSA with additional extensive experience lecturing at NYU, the New York Choreographic Institute, and LDI. He has also had academic appointments at the Juilliard School, The University of Iowa, and the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh Cambodia. He has a long-standing interest in education and is also a current MA candidate in the Adult Education Program at ECU. Clifton is the author of the book on color for lighting designers: “Color and Light, Navigating Color Mixing in the Midst of an LED revolution” which was published by Ones and Zeros Media.
You can learn more about the Studio School of Design at studioschoolofdesign.org.
Los Angeles, CA – The prestigious LIT Lighting Design Awards is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2021 Spotlight prize is “LUCI Association” (Lighting Urban Community International).
The Spotlight Prize has been introduced in 2020 to reward and put the “spotlight” on an organization, association, project, or initiative that carries out remarkable work for its community and has a major contribution to the Lighting Industry.
Created in 2002 at the initiative of the City of Lyon (France), today, LUCI is a non-profit organisation bringing together over 70 member towns and cities worldwide that use light as a tool for social, cultural and economic development. It also includes over 50 associated members from the lighting industry, design agencies and research institutes.
“We are really delighted and honoured to receive the LIT 2021 Spotlight Prize. At LUCI, we strongly believe in city-to-city collaboration, exchange, learning and co-creation to improve urban lighting and quality of life in cities. As LUCI is about to turn 20 years young, this comes at a perfect time to recognize the Association’s contribution to the global urban lighting community!” said Mark Burton-Page, General Director of LUCI.
Through the organisation of international events and conferences, and by piloting lighting projects and research initiatives, LUCI helps cities harness the potential of light to create sustainable and people-focused urban spaces.
AGM Tartu © Annika Hass TAVA – LUCI AGM Tartu © Annika Hass TAVA
What are the core missions of LUCI and how it supports cities :
© L_Oritsland – © City of Rotterdam photo EricFecken
LUCI Association activities, publications and events:
For more information on the LUCI Association please visit the LUCI website and social media accounts: Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.