Extras

News, Events, Press & Interesting Reads about the Women in Lighting Project.

Pretty in Pink on a Dark Street
23 Feb 2023:

Pretty in Pink on a Dark Street

The live performance, Pretty in Pink on a Dark Street, is a collaboration between designer Marina Menéndez-Pidal and dance artist Anastasia Bezruchko. The work is just as much about femininity as it is about the role lighting plays at night.
R.A.W Carlotta Premazzi
4 Feb 2023:

R.A.W Carlotta Premazzi

Carlotta Premazzi, who interacts and expresses herself with the luminous medium in a multipurpose way, is an example for those who want to make the visual stimulus evolve into a real aesthetic experience of the metaverse.
17 Jan 2023 — 19 Jan 2023:

WIL at Light Middle East

Jan 17th LME Awards - Shortlisted Products Pitch at the Specifiers Arena with the possibility for Peer Voting as well. Product design panel including WIL ambassador for UAE, Sakina Dugawalla-Moeller. 10am to 2pm at the Specifiers Arena - Who will survive the Lighting Shark Tank?! Evening: A Trip to Museum of the Future!!!! Jan 18th Light Talks hosted by Light Collective. You can find the full program here, culminating in a special WIL session: Design for Social Inclusion Panel Discussion presented in Pecha Kucha style with each contributor presenting their experiences, knowledge and real-world examples of socially inclusive designs. Panelists include: Cherine Saroufim - IDEPCONSULT, WIL Lebanon Momena Saleem - WIL Pakistan Dipali Shirsat - Delta Lighting Design, UAE, WIL R.A.W. blogger Katia Kolovea - WIL team, Archifos, UK Dalal AlSharhan - DAL Studio, WIL Kuwait Surbhi Jindal - Da Light Hub, WIL India Look out for a special Light and Health session with WIL Mexico ambassador,  Magali Mendez Details to come. Jan 19th The 16th edition of the LME Awards, a Gala dinner at the Ritz Carlton. Also at the show, WIL partner, The Virtual Lighting Design Community will be conducting a series of live interviews in the Premium Club which will be live streamed. More info on this to follow. Sign Up Link for WIL Supporters

22 Nov 2022 — 23 Nov 2022:

APERITIVO at Light22

To celebrate the end of the first day of Light 22, formalighting are holding a traditional Italian Aperitivo on their stand for the WIL Community and any WIL Male Supporters - please join us and come and say hello between 5:30pm and 7pm on Tuesday 22nd November.Also the next day, UK WIL Ambassador Carmela Dagnello is hosting a catch up on 23rd November at 5pm at The Skinny Kitchen, 52 Upper Street, N1 0QH.

18 Nov 2022:

WIL at LDI

LDI in collaboration with WIL, will be hosting short 30-minute talks by dynamic women in the lighting industry on a series of different topics!

14 Nov 2022 — 25 Nov 2022:

Collected Light – London

Collected Light Exhibition comprises six artworks created by six different female artists, curated by Sharon Stammers and Martin Lupton of Light Collective and displayed at boutique gallery, SoShiro in London, with the support of formalighting.This intimate exhibition features a range of mediums, from neon to projection and created between 2019 and 2022. Experience works from Chila Kumari Burman Singh (UK), Jacqueline Hen (DE), Karolina Halatek (PL), Kate McMillan (UK/AU), Lauren Baker (UK) and Tamar Frank (NL).

15 Aug 2022:

1ST INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF LIGHT ART

Paulina Villalobos, the WIL ambassador in Chile speaks with UK based Liz West, Aleksandra Stratimirovic in Sweden and Jen Lewin in the USA in an online session.
R.A.W: Aleksandra Stratimirovich
15 Jul 2022:

R.A.W: Aleksandra Stratimirovich

Aleksandra creates site-specific works in public spaces and is also co-founder of the Lighting Guerrilla Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and artistic director of the Belgrade Light Festival in Serbia.
24 Jun 2022:

Expectation – WIL Taiwan+China Workshop

Women In Lighting Taiwan and China organised a workshop on the evening of June 24, 2022, in Taipei, Taiwan, which was sponsored by Forma Lighting and its local partner Konson Trading Co., Ltd. The workshop attracted 30 participants; mostly female lighting designers based in Taiwan.The theme of the workshop was "Expectation", with the aim of introducing the WIL organization, the development opportunities WIL has offered to women in the industry, and to invite more designers to support WIL's goals. The event gave participants deeper insight into the WIL project and collected topics of interest from them for future events.The workshop was opened by Ya-Hui Cheng, a WIL Taiwan ambassador, who introduced her educational and professional background and how she became to be involved in the WIL project. Ya-Hui argued that, because of unconscious gender bias in her society due mainly to family background, men receive more opportunities in the Lighting industry than women do. Ya-Hui highlighted how the WIL project aims to create opportunities for women in gaining industry experience, including judging and speaking at lighting awards and events, whilst also supporting the emerging generation of women designers to achieve their goals. Ya-Hui also introduced the 8 March WIL Global gathering and the WIL Awards, the result of the UK Gender Equality Survey in the lighting Industry by Carmela Dagnello, and finally encouraged workshop participants to join and support WIL in their endeavors.The next to present was Jenna Liu, in her capacity as the WIL China ambassador, to highlight the work WIL performs in China. Jenna explained that, whilst WIL provides opportunities for women to succeed in the Lighting industry, they also need male supporters in the process to assist in achieving equality between men and women. Jenna ran workshop participants through the process of navigating and finding information on the WIL website and mentioned that WIL also celebrated International Men’s Day on 19 November as part of their equality program. Jenna promoted activities on the Chinese social software wechat, welcome Chinese to join.During the break, both ambassadors had workshop participants fill out gender equality survey questionnaires, to help WIL gain local data.The workshop ended with a Question-and-Answer session, with all participants actively engaged in the discussion. Topics of discussion included: understanding what participants feel and think about the industry, the various opportunities for women to increase their chances of making public appearances, and suggestions on various lighting installations in Taiwan that could be improved. Finally, a survey was taken of participants' expectations for subsequent WIL activities.Photo above : Our WIL male supporter Mr. Tawei Lin provided champagne to celebrate the success of the event.

29 Apr 2022:

Gender in Lighting and Dark Sky Forum

On the evening of April 29, 2022, the Taiwan Dark-sky Association (TDA) invited two representatives from the International Women in Lighting (WIL), Ya-Hui Cheng and Jenna Liu to talk about gender in lighting and to discuss the prospects of night lighting. The forum was broadcast at the same time via Facebook and the online Yinzhiguang (elicht.cn) platform in Mainland China.This forum was started with Miss Zhi-ying Li as a TDA Project Manager sharing her life experiences, her interest in nature, and the issue of dark space. The dark space related to the safety issue, especially for women, has been manifested in the society, if we don't think about it carefully, we may not realize it very much, and they are so subtle and imperceptible that we passively obey these rules. For example, we often heard that it is not safe for a woman to go out at night.Ya-Hui as WIL Taiwan representative has introduced WIL and presented some research about gender issues in the workplace, from man and woman perspectives. The research mentioned how different men and women think, deal with the problem, and look at things, even on the color. The research also mentioned that for most women, feeling safe is the most important aspect when traveling. Based on the research, it was concluded that the quality of light is more important than the quantity of light as too bright is not always safe. The layer of light and the availability to recognizing is more important than just being bright. Besides, Ya-hui gave some examples and photo references on the ideas of light reduction, including the “Dark Design” concept, Moonlighting design, and even Indirect lighting by introducing some ways to reduce the unnecessary lighting by playing with the light layers, unitizing the light from the adjacent space, and even using the reflective light from the task lighting bounce back from the table to the ceiling as the space sensing light. Ya-Hui closes the speech with “Light Fasting”, the concept originated from Mr. Kaoru Mende, to make lighting environment “healthier”.Jenna as WIL China representative made a comparison between the dark sky which correlate to the environment and lighting which correlate to the human being, in terms of light source selection, reducing glare, brightness, and size. She highlighted the lighting design for different genders based on the eye height. She gave some real-life photo examples of how different genders view the space and installation height of the light fitting differently.Mr. Lin Axiou as TDA Chairman gave a speech about the philosophy of life, nature, and society. He thinks the patriarchal system constructed by society over thousands of years is quite stable, its structure is large, and in many places it has been taken for granted. And some are manifested in subtle places, if we don't think about it carefully, we may not realize it very much, and they are so subtle and imperceptible that we passively obey these rules. Lighting reduction arguments are always associated safety issues, and the female lighting designers are the stakeholders in both meaning. Dark-sky initiative must understand the deep concerns from women and lighting designers. So it is the first dark-sky advocacy dialogue with female lighting designers in Asia.The forum ended with a Q&A with all the participants actively engaged in the discussion.

Pioneers of Light: a History of Women in Lighting Design
6 Apr 2022:

Pioneers of Light: a History of Women in Lighting Design

Veteran lighting designers Anne Militello and Beverly Emmons discuss the history of the female pioneers who blazed new trails to create the field of lighting design.
25 Mar 2022:

Women’s Search for Equity

This presentation by Lauren Dandridge focuses on the delineation of equality and equity and how we can use the past few years as a guide for changing the gender system to allow women to bring more of their whole selves to the workplace.
25 Mar 2022:

Press Coverage

Ongoing list of Press Coverage on the WIL project
20 Dec 2021:

2021 WIL Activities

As 2021 draws to a close and we can put all the challenges of the year behind us, we look back proudly on what the WIL community has achieved and also forward with excitement to our plans for 2022.
16 Dec 2021:

WIL Holiday Gathering

Join formalighting and the Women in Lighting team to celebrate the holidays with a unique social gathering in the 8-bit metaverse known as Gather Town! Create your own avatar, wander round our party venue and meet the international WIL community to chat and socialise.Tickets are limited. Apply for a ticket to: [email protected]. Further information will then be shared with you on how to participate in the Holiday Gathering.

R.A.W: CAMILA GRIMALDI
17 Nov 2021:

R.A.W: CAMILA GRIMALDI

A journey from stage lighting design to event production through art curation: from Brazil to Europe, this is the story of an illuminated professional.
22 Sep 2021:

Women in Lighting for Gender Equality

Visit the [d]arc room pop up to hear the panel discuss Gender Equality in the Lighting Industry. The 50:50 panel includes Krishna Mistry (Mistry Lighting), Ruth Kelly Waskett (Society of Light and Lighting President, Hoare Lea), Marcus Steffen (Marcus Steffen Lighting Design) and James Poore (James Poore Lighting Design) and hosted by Sarah Cullen, editor of darc magazine. Inspired by the survey undertaken by WIL UK, the panel will talk about issues such as women in leadership and the gender pay gap, women and work/life balance, company policies and motherhood. Also how men and women can fight gender bias together to make the workplace better for all.

#womeninlightingUKfacts
20 Sep 2021:

#womeninlightingUKfacts

The majority of us in the UK lighting industry believe there is a fair gender balance in our workplaces. Is it true?
16 Sep 2021:

Introduced Lighting Design as a separate subject in Universities

I, Ana Tanveer Abdullah, WIL ambassador, introduced and established lighting design as a separate subject in architecture and interior design curricula at major universities in Pakistan. The inaugural batch successfully graduated in 2023 (attached image), where I initiated teachings on CCT and CRI within the realm of lighting fixtures, ensuring each student had hands-on experience in a classroom  environment (attached image). This pioneering effort aims to enhance the quality of education and professional practice in the field of architectural and interior design in Pakistan, paving the way for future innovation and excellence in lighting industry.

14 Sep 2021:

Moving Lights

There was a live demo from Ayrton from their Paris showroom, a talk by UK lighting designer Aideen Malone, a presentation on architectural moving light products from formalighting and a talk from French designer Damien Joyeux. The session ended with a Q&A.

#iamawomanoflight

According to International Women’s Day, I am very glad to tell to all the people who are engaging in lighting business that the highest position of Japanese mythology is a Goddess called Amaterasu. She is the Goddess of Light and her power is falling all over the world. Please read Japanese mythology and recognise women’s power.

Motoko Ishii, Lighting Designer
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