A UD IOVISUAL ACTIVISM – LIG H TING P R ACTICES B ENE FITTING TH E INDUST R Y A N D THE PEOPLE WITH IN IT. While the idea of audiovisual improvement often suggests technological, practical advances, some industry groups emphasise that true progress in lighting, sound, and visuals depends on inclusive and responsible practices. The Light Collective team, in its creation of the ‘Women in Lighting’ project and its collaboration with Traverso-Vighy Architetti producing ‘Going Dark’, continues to demonstrate how the discourse around lighting should extend beyond functionality in order to foster social change and raise environmental awareness.
In conversation with MONDO-DR, the founders of Light Collective and Traverso-Vighy discussed the significance of their projects and the overall benefits of disruptive organisations within the AV community. Women in Lighting Put simply, Light Collective, led by co-founders Sharon Stammers and Martin Lupton, is a UK-based lighting consultancy. However, with projects spanning community outreach, exhibitions, book design, filmmaking, and more, their portfolio is far from standard. While light remains at the core of everything they do, their work extends well beyond traditional consultancy. The duo launched the Light Collective project ‘Women in Lighting’ in 2019, after noticing an imbalance in the industry. “In 2017 we released a film called The Perfect Light,” Stammers began. “It contained interviews with lighting designers from around the world. After one showing, a group of designers came up to us and said, ‘We loved your film, but where were the women in it?’ We realised that, completely unintentionally, we had only interviewed four women for the piece, as opposed to the 19 men included.” Stammers and Lupton began further research into the issue, realising that perhaps this was indicative of a larger issue. They found that despite making up a notable percentage of the industry, most major events and committees were male-oriented; at its worst, one conference platformed 42 speakers and only one was female. Becoming aware of the extent to which women are overlooked in audiovisual spaces and their own unconscious biases, Light Collective created Women in Lighting (WIL) as a project working on profiling and supporting women working in all luminary-related fields.
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