48|PROTAGONISTA “Given the level of investment worldwide in LED, this is a technology that is here to stay. It is a change in the paradigm of lighting”. can do things with LED you could not do with traditional sources. As designers it is up to us to take on board these new tools and work with industry to see what can be done with them, and it’s really beginning to go in fascinating ways. They key is to not get so absorbed with new technology that we forget about older sources to our detriment. Candle-light is still one of my favourite things. You were the president of the jury in the Lamp Awards 2015. At the awards ceremony, you emphasized the level of the projects and you celebrated their diverse origin, not European only. Is it a symptom for the recognition of the culture of light and the Lighting designer’s profession in different places in the world? I was impressed by the global spread of entries and it was very interesting for me to see so much work from other places. When I started in lighting design, the profession was limited to a few designers in a handful of countries - the United States, the U.K., Germany, Japan, and one or two other places. Now we see really good quality creative lighting design carried out by independent lighting designers, and not just the lighting departments of manufacturers, in every country around the world. What is also fascinating to me is the diversity of cultural expression. By way of example, I always felt that lighting design from Japan looks and feels different from the lighting design from Europe, and different again from lighting design from America. Now we begin to see many other cultures inputting their own cultural values into lighting design, and this is something really special to behold. About the culture of light, we are in the International Year of Light (IYL 2015). Do you think that this celebration is contributing to a mayor diffusion of your profession? Although the International Year of Light has its origins in science rather than art and design, anything that raises awareness the many things that light affects is a good thing. It’s no surprise that the lighting design profession has leveraged the exposure afforded by the IYL to celebrate what we do, the contribution that we make, King’s Cross Light Tunnel-HALFLIFE. ©James Newton