Your Interview Julie Collange

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Julie Collange

Designer, Artist
Spain
Introduce yourself (name, company, position, country) and tell us how you got into lighting design (including education/qualifications).

Hi everyone! My name is Julie Collange, I am a french lighting designer and visual artist, based in Madrid, Spain. After completing my Architectural Lighting Design Master’s Degree, I started working at the company LLEDO GROUP SPAIN.

My relationship with light started very early. When I was a child, I often went to my mother’s office. At that time she was working in the audiovisual field, I sat in her photography studio, watching with attention how she adjusted the light, handling the lenses, filters, and I found it was amazing to get so many different effects just by changing the orientation of the light.

Sometimes I would "run away" in a small cinema room close to my mother’s office where black and white films could be seen all day long, and there I could spend hours enjoying myself.

At that time, I did not yet realize the emotional range provided by this type of cinema, but unconsciously I knew how to value it, since it was going to clearly condition my professional future.

And It is thanks to film such as “The Night of the Hunter”, “Nosferatu”, “Citizen Kane”, that I discovered the creativity offered by light and shadows, the ranges of grey, contrasts, and I decided to explore the unlimited possibilities that light offers us.

Tell us about your work – is there a specific type of project you like to work on or an area you specialise in and why?

I focus my experience on a particular manifestation of art, exploring Camera, illumination, photography, ephemeral installations, scenic design, and how to complement them.

My artistic purpose focuses on building visual metaphors to transmit an emotional resonance.

In continuous research with emitting objects, receivers and light reflectors, I’m looking to remove the peculiarities of the surface where the light is to be projected and I try to get different optical effects depending on the finish as well as manipulating the shadow to create illusions.

Strengths:
- Photographic and artistic composition
- Chromatic Narrative/ Color Psychology
- Plastic Arts

What project are you most proud of and why?

Most of them! In one way or another, you always learn something, improve skills... And especially when you get the whole electrical system turned on, and you generate a subtle connection with the public by involving them in what’s around them

What is the biggest challenge that you have overcome in your career?

Understanding light is not easy, let alone natural light, we cannot master it and therefore take the time to understand and feel it. I compare it many times to water, you don’t know how far it can go...

When you add the structural factor, and even more when it’s a historical monument where the restrictions are usually limited in terms of the installation of the luminaires, get an elegant and integrated lighting installation, without diminishing aspects concerning architecture represents a real lighting challenge.

How does light inspire you?

I consider myself a freaky of light, a sunbeam after a rain storm, traversing a gray cloud, creating an ephemeral figure thanks to shadows, dark spaces with thin rays of light infiltrated, it makes me dream and imagine a movie in my head.

The light makes us fall in love with it every day for its versatility, poetry, mystery, its ability to become palpable in an instant.

What is your message for other Women In Lighting?

Let us stop categorizing our work, whether it be architectural, scenic or cinematographic, after all we talk about only one element, light.

I firmly believe in bringing together multidisciplinary facets in the same project. The most valuable thing that a human being can do is to attention to the other.  Speaking the same language, we will get closer to go further.

Lives in:
Madrid (Spain)
Born in:
Paris (France)
Qualifications:
Architectural Lighting Design Master’s Degree, Interior Design Master’s Degree, Business Communication, Event Management and Advertising Psychology Bachelor's Degree
Started working with light in:
2015
Now works at:
LLEDO Group
Loves:
New Orleans jazz music, world travel, analyse photography direction of the film

“I firmly believe in bringing together multidisciplinary facets in the same project. Let us stop categorizing our work, whether it be architectural, scenic or cinematographic, after all we talk about only one element, light. Speaking the same language, we will get closer to go further.”

Selected portfolio:

Black & White Sphere. New concept of church. FranceAutomotive exhibition. GermanyBeauty station. GermanyShadow. Photography by Julie CollangeLledo Group Showroom. Office

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