Light is many things to many people, full of possibilities, and with the unique ability to sculpt, form and define spaces with a snap of the fingers. But things get magical when an artist takes light and invests its potential in their craft.

In the first of the conversations on Light and its connections with various facets of our daily lives, we have an engaging interaction between an artist and sculptor who defies classification, Janet Echelman, from the United States of America, and Amanda Szabo, an emerging light artist from Hungary. Echelman sculpts at the scale of buildings and cities and has managed successfully to continually blur the lines between sculpture, architecture, urban design, material science, engineering and human creativity. With contextual installations in various parts of the world, her story is one of constant experimentation and evolution of design thought. Her TED talk Taking Imagination Seriously has been translated into 35 languages with more than two million views.

Following her amazing and inspiring keynote address at the Professional Lighting Design Conference in Rotterdam, Echelman shared her varied experiences and insightful inputs for young emerging artists and design thinkers with talented and adventurous Szabo, Women in Lighting Ambassador from Hungary, who herself works as a lighting designer and has now ventured into the world of light art. The conversation describes their personal journeys, the innovative responses Echelman adopts when faced with challenges and heart-warming stories about the process of collaborative design.

08 min watch

Watch out for more from the series Spread the Light 6/6 presented by Wipro Lighting, in collaboration with PLDC.