(USA) – The online conference, held on 21-22 October, drew more than 600 attendees.

The IALD hosted its first ever online Enlighten Americas event on 21-22 October – a boutique conference for the international lighting design community, the event drew more than 600 attendees from around the world to its online platform, including designers, architects, students, educators, manufacturers and suppliers.

“While we all wish we could be together in person, our online Enlighten conferences still give us the opportunity to gather together as one strong community,” said Douglas Leonard, IALD President. “This year’s Enlighten Americas showcased a strong line up of lighting luminaries. The topics covered the challenges at hand, putting them front and centre for all of us to address and learn how to navigate. We continue to explore what inspires us, why we love lighting design and how we can support our profession’s continued growth.”

Marsha Turner, IALD CEO, added: “2020 has been a year of many ‘firsts’ for the IALD. And bringing IALD’s Enlighten conferences online this year has been another first for us. In addition to the strong content, our Enlighten events are typically a time to connect and reconnect – to catch up with long-time friends, meet new colleagues, be inspired and have a bit of fun, so we created events throughout the program that focused on connecting and networking virtually.”

Enlighten Americas kicked off with a leading international panel on What Inspires You and How is it Different Now Than When You First Started Lighting Design, where Keith Bradshaw, Susanna Antico and Steven Rosen shared their different paths to lighting design and inspirations along the way. From being an architect, to art student, to lighting designer; being inspired by the colours, water and reflections of her home on a Mediterranean island; from being fascinated by the interplay between colour and light in the theatre, to being inspired by his own team – each of them found their own lighting muse.

This year, we have seen the importance of diversity and inclusion discussions. Edward Bartholomew, Lisa Reed and Nelson Jenkins continued this discussion, sharing the impact of racism and colonialism in the lighting industry in their session, Multicultural Inclusion: Reflecting the Communities We Illuminate. Here, they showed how firms can thrive through diversity and inclusion by suggesting ways to expand the talent pool.

Other presentations across the two-day event came from Randy Burkett, Carrie Hawley, Andrew Mackinnon, Victor Palacio, Charles Stone, Colin Ball, Monica Lobo and Gerd Pfarré.

All presentations from the event are available to catch up on the IALD YouTube page here.

Following on from Enlighten Americas, the IALD will host Enlighten Europe Online on 18-19 November. Registration for this event is still open, and participants can register here.

www.iald.org