Collected Light: Volume Two is the second in a series of books from Light Collective, a UK-based lighting consultancy that has spent the last 30 years working with light in many formats. As well as architectural lighting design, the company is known for its role as a light activist within the lighting industry. This has ranged from guerrilla lighting demonstrations around the world, showing the transformative nature of light within cities, to the creation of the global community and project, Women In Lighting. WIL was set up to raise the profile of women working with light and to celebrate their achievements, also to address both conscious and unconscious bias in the world of professional lighting.
The WIL project led Light Collective to the curation of its first book, Collected Light: Volume
One which was launched in November 2022 and featured 44 women working as artists using the medium of light. After participating in many conferences, exhibitions and light festivals around the world, it became apparent to them that there is an onus on, and much greater visibility of, male artists who work, or have worked, with light within their bodies of work. The book was a small step towards trying to redress this imbalance and bring their work to a wider audience.
The first book was published alongside the Collected Light exhibition in November 2022, which comprised a collection of six artworks created by six different female artists, curated by Light Collective with the support
of formalighting. The exhibition featured a range of mediums, from neon to projection. On show were works from Chila Kumari Singh Burman (UK), Jacqueline Hen (DE), Karolina Halatek (PL), Kate McMillan (UK/ AU), Lauren Baker (UK) and Tamar Frank (NL), displayed at the SoShiro gallery in London. The exhibition then moved onto Milan in March 2023, and the works were displayed at the Cascina Cuccagna, featuring two new pieces from Liz West (UK) and Kate Hush (USA). The Collected Light exhibition is part of the project and the start of the creation of a permanent collection made up solely of women light artists. After London and Milan, the exhibition toured to Hong Kong in 2024 with the addition of more women light artists.
“After the first book and the exhibitions, we started to discover more women working with light and approached them about being featured in specialist posts on Instagram. Some women, who had come across the book, approached us and others connected on social media because our content resonated with them. It became apparent we had more than enough content for a second book so we started again, asking another 42 women to participate by sharing images of their work, so a new book could be created. We would like to thank all of the contributors for their time and generosity and hope that fans of the first book like and appreciate this one too.” Light Collective
Collected Light: Volume Two features the following women light artists: Alex Leyva, Alicia Eggert, Amelia Kosminsky, Andrea Bowers, Angela Yuen, Aphra Shemza, April Key, Carla Chan,Cecilia Ömalm, Chankalun, Chris Wood, Clara Daguin, Claudia Bueno, Daisy Doig, Diana Rojas, Ecem Dilan Köse, Eve De Haan, Fiona Grady, Flora
Litchfield, France Dubois, Giny Vos, Grimanesa Amorós, Hannah Ayre, Inma Femenía, Iyvone Khoo, Jasmine Grace, Jenny Mc Namara, Jeongmoon Choi, Jiayu Liu, Jo Holland, Margareta Hesse, Maria Vera, Meagan Streader, Nicola Anthony, Regine Schumann, Sabine Marcelis, Sandra E. Blatterer, Seohyo, Shirin Abedinirad, So Wing Po, Vanessa Hafenbrädl, Vera Röhm, Viel Bjerkeset Andersen and Ying-Chen Lin.
Both Volume One and Volume Two are supported by formalighting.
There is also a third book in the series, Collected Light: Volume Three – Women in Entertainment Lighting. The aim of this book is to raise the profile of the designers featured in the hope that it offers support, encouragement and inspiration to the next generation of women hoping to work in this sector and includes a selection of projects from designers working in Theatre, Live Events, Film and Television and was supported by Ayrton Lighting.
For more information about the Women In Lighting project and Light Collective: www.womeninlighting.com
www.lightcollective.net
The Women In Lighting project has been proudly supported by formalighting since its inception on International Women’s Day in 2019 and Ayrton since 2021.
www.formalighting.com
www.ayrton.eu
Links to buy the book on Amazon are as follows:
US
DE
FR
ES
IT
NL
PL
SE
Link to but the digital version is here: