7 minute read
Inspiring Action with Lya Osborn
By Kelly Roberts
Lya Shaffer Osborn is no stranger to inspiring action, within herself and in others. As one of the co-founders of Light Justice, an advocacy resource dedicated to addressing inequities in lighting design for the underserved, Lya’s journey reflects a deep commitment to the power of light, sustainability, and positive social change. Her story as a lighting designer is not only about career but a mission that blends creativity with activism.
A Path of Curiosity and Community
What initially drew Lya to lighting was, in her words, "terrible lighting." Before she found her way into the field, Lya was working as a Foreign Affairs Officer in Washington, D.C., at the U.S. Department of State. Though she loved her job, something about the environment felt off.
The building’s brutalist architecture, combined with outdated, harsh fluorescent lighting, created spaces that felt more oppressive than productive. "One February morning, I sat down at my desk in a tiny windowless office, under one flickering ceiling panel, and suddenly realized – maybe the gray I’ve been feeling has something to do with this interior environment," she recalled.
That day, she began researching the connection between interior built environments and physical and mental health, which eventually led her to Parsons School of Design. There, she pursued a double MFA in Lighting and Interior Design, realizing she wanted to be a problem-solver who could identify and offer solutions for the kinds of environmental issues that can have an outsized and under-recognized impact on people’s daily lives.
After graduating, she spent several years working in New York City on high-end hospitality and retail projects. While the projects provided creative opportunities and allowed her to hone her craft, Lya felt a growing discomfort. “I was aware of where my attention wasn’t,” she explained. In spite of the glamor of luxury spaces, she felt a pull toward more community-centered work.
This shift in perspective became the catalyst for a gradual change in practice. Lya realized that many underserved communities lack access to the benefits of thoughtful lighting design, and that this directly impacted their quality of life. “I started thinking about places where design does not offer the tools and solutions we know it has the power to contribute," she said. “Why shouldn’t everyone have access to responsible, safe, and beautiful lighting?”
From Isolation to Inspiration
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Lya’s personal and professional life underwent a significant shift. She, her spouse, and their two-year-old relocated from Brooklyn to Seattle, seeking proximity to family and nature. The pandemic brought challenges for everyone, and for Lya, the isolation from community and colleagues in a new city felt daunting. Yet, this time of reflection became fertile ground for new ideas.
Lya began thinking more deeply about how lighting design could contribute to the public good, particularly for local communities and groups that lacked resources. She was struck by how small design interventions could make a huge difference in these environments. “Spending an extra $30 per fixture on a giant, well-resourced project might feel like petty change, but in a community center, that same investment could make a huge impact on the experience of folks in that space every day,” Lya shared. This realization further fueled her passion to make professional lighting design accessible to organizations and individuals who had been historically overlooked.
This mindset led her to offer her services as a citizen lighting designer to various local nonprofits, community groups, and businesses. One such project was with a midwives group in South Seattle. The collective was moving to a new birth center and community clinic, and while they had funding from the city for the site and support from an architect on the buildout, they had no funds for the interior setting nor the transition out of their old space.
Lya held listening sessions and supported the organization‘s application for a grant to fund interior design improvements and furniture procurement – along with offering design expertise. Along with facilitating a time-and budget-sensitive move out of their old space and into the new one, Lya focused on giving the midwives language for their and their clients’ visual needs during the challenging and momentous event of childbirth.
While modest in scale, this project became a new template for Lya, demonstrating how design can bridge resource gaps – and what designers can learn from these communities in the process. She has since begun working on more small-scale projects in Seattle, specifically seeking out clients to whom lighting design is not familiar as a resource.
The Birth of Light Justice
Light Justice was born out of a growing frustration with the industry’s lack of attention to the social and environmental implications of lighting. In 2021, Lya met Edward Bartholomew and Mark Loeffler, her future co-curators at Light Justice, after a talk on the topic they gave at a lighting conference in New York. The trio quickly coalesced over shared concerns around how lighting inequities were affecting marginalized communities. They discussed how poorly designed lighting—whether too little or too much—can create unsafe environments, contribute to light pollution, and perpetuate social disparities.
Urban lighting, it has become clear, is often disproportionately distributed. In wealthier areas, there is frequently an abundance of well-designed, functional, well-maintained lighting, often at comfortable low levels appropriate for visual comfort and safe navigation.
Meanwhile, in lower-income neighborhoods, lighting can be either insufficient or too harsh, and also inconsistently maintained. This leads to safety concerns, a sense of hostile surveillance, and diminished public gathering. “Lighting can be a form of injustice,” Lya says. “In so many cities, we see a stark difference between well-lit, prosperous neighborhoods and those who are left in the dark, so to speak.”
With these concerns in mind, Lya, Edward, and Mark launched LightJustice.org, an online resource and advocacy hub that aims to address lighting inequities through community engagement, education, and design solutions. The organization encourages working with underserved communities to improve public lighting in a way that is both equitable and environmentally responsible. By collaborating directly with local residents, practitioners of light justice ensure that the lighting solutions they propose are responsive to the needs and desires of the community.
Illuminating a Brighter Future
As Lya continues her advocacy with Light Justice, she remains committed to pushing expectations of where lighting design can make an impact. Whether it’s through hands-on projects with local communities or advocating for sustainable, socially conscious practices in the industry, her mission is clear: to contribute to a future in which good lighting is not a luxury, but a right for all.
Looking toward her child’s generation and beyond, Lya envisions a future where lighting design is no longer an obscure and mysterious specialization. “For the broader public, especially in the LED era of rapid technological evolution, lighting can feel, at best, like inscrutable, beautiful magic emerging from wizards hidden behind the curtain, and at worst, like a curse, bewildering and impossible to escape,” she explains. Her hope is that the science of light and its effect on our physical and mental well-being become as understood and integral in daily life as nutrition or access to clean air and water.
Lya’s journey is a testament to the power of curiosity, community, and compassion in shaping not just careers but entire industries. By recognizing the profound impact that lighting has on our daily lives, and by dedicating her career to making that impact a positive one, she has illuminated a path toward a brighter, more just future.
“Our relationship with light and darkness is both our birthright and our responsibility,” Lya affirms, underscoring her commitment to creating a future where light is not only understood but harnessed for the well-being of people and the planet.
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Lya Osborn
Connect with Lya on LinkedIn • @lightjusticeorg • lightjustice.org
Women in Lighting and Design info@womeninlightinganddesign.org • @womeninlightinganddesign • womeninlightinganddesign.org
