Lighting Designers and Workshop Heads

Emma Cogswell is a Professional Lighting Designer with over 20 years experience in the Lighting industry.  She lives in London and is very much part of the lighting communit, recognized over the past two decades for her consultancy work to the IALD, Lighting Design Practices, other trade bodies and support groups in the build environment. Emma’s passion is to engage with the inhabitants of spaces and story tell through the medium of light.

Emma graduated from Oxford Brookes University, after studying ‘Three Dimensional Studies majored in Interior Design’, she managed to secure a job straight from college with Mary Rushton-Beales at the Lighting Design House in London. It was a six-week contract which actually lasted 11years. After many adventures she got the lighting bug and has remained in the industry ever since. Following Mary’s excellent tutorage, Emma found great enjoyment mentoring others and being involved in a range of educational programs with a range of lighting trade bodies.

Emma has been in Alingsås several times due to the collaboration between IALD and Lights in Alingsås, but this will be the first time that she assumes the role as Workshop Head. She is delighted to join the very esteemed workshop heads in this special anniversary year and explore all the lighting techniques that can be created from the extensive range of fittings from the supporting lighting manufacturing partners.

Geoge completed his Architectural Studies at National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1982. He was searching for reasons to justify design choices when creating a new structure (a new physical system) and was fascinated by Light and how it is greatly influencing space.

He continued his studies in London at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Planning at University College London, after having secured a Greek State Scholarship (IKY, State Scholarship Foundation of Greece) to cover Fees and Living Expenses.

There Geoge completed MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering 1984 (awarded with distinction on Audio Visual Thermal Comfort) and PhD studies by research 1989 regarding the availability of Daylight in Greece and its use in Building Design Constructions.

He has been the owner of his architectural and lighting consultancy in Athens Greece since 1989 and completed over 450 projects since. The projects include various functions including private houses, banks, hotels, shopping and leisure centers, cultural centers, hospitals, MRI, CCT, Linear Accelerator Rooms, open-air public spaces, floodlighting of buildings facades, artwork, art exhibitions and museums, offices, public schools and auditoria.

George also taught at the NTUA post graduate program on Bioclimatic Architecture following a four-year teaching undergraduate students on Building Construction studies.

Taking part in Lighting for Alingsas 2024 he is seeking to experience the interaction of lighting professionals and students from other cultures to receive feedback on their notion about the use of Light in habitable space.

Srdja has been working as an architect, lighting designer and teacher for over 30 years.

He got his master’s from USC in Los Angeles.

Srdja has authored/co-authored many architectural and lighting design projects and published numerous articles, chapters, and conference papers.

He has also been advising local government on matters of lighting and environment policy. Srdja has been teaching lighting and design at universities thought Europe, USA and New Zealand.

He is working as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Product Design, his main subject area was light; lighting design and daylight.

Currently, he and his partner Jasmina Memic are teaching the course “Light in Design” for the final year at the Academy of Fine Arts, product design department and master’s degree at the Faculty of Architecture.

Jasmina and Srdja are the only team in this year´s Lights in Alingsås workshop.

They work together at their lighting design studio Lightartpro which was established in 2016.

“As teachers, educators we are always interested in research and practice to inform our teaching; our teaching motivates our research and practice. We focused our research interest on how light affects the dimensioning and shaping of architectural spaces through art and architecture. So, workshops like this give us a great foundation to understand how students can perceive light using it as a tool to create space. We will implement this knowledge in future classes and our practice will receive new inspiration because we will also learn in the process of teaching.” Srdja says.

Jasmina is an architect and lighting designer, with over fifteen years of international work experience. She has been professionally active in designing architectural and ambient lighting of heritage sites, public cultural and educational spaces as well as working in the field of interactive technology development. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Sarajevo and completed her postgraduate studies in the field of lighting design at the La Sapienza University of Rome. She is the author and co-author of a large number of realised projects, out of which she singles out projects of illuminating urban and cultural heritage sites, exhibitions and museum settings.

At the Academy of fine Arts in Sarajevo she is working as an assistant teacher for “Light in Design” course. During this process, she started Light Art movement where students create installations or pop-up exhibitions in outdoor public spaces. The goal is to use the light as a medium for artistic creation and space design. Integrating Light Art into public spaces enables artists to express themselves more creatively and freely, they excite the imagination and communicate with wider audiences through a special experience of the space. Light art creates a different image of the city, affects the atmosphere and mood, inspires and changes perspectives in a fantastic, unique, way.

”I am passionate about design, light, art, and architecture. Working with youth, leading them in their creative process is the motivating and most meaningful activity for me. Acting on international lever is always inspiring challenge. I’m looking forward to leading the workshop and collaborate with other professionals and light enthusiasts”, Jasmina says.

Johan fell head over heels in love with light in 2004, the year he considers himself to have become a conscious user of light. That was when he realized he could work his whole life providing people with better visual spaces and, above all, imparting a greater understanding of how we, as seeing beings, can utilize light even better.

This has led him to the most varied job imaginable. In addition to hundreds of smaller and larger lighting projects, he has had projects involving spectral distribution measurements for egg-laying hens, investigations of light pollution in new building areas, responsibility for 28,000 light points in the municipality, designing luminaires, writing lighting masterplans for cities, traveling around the world to lecture and organize light festivals, and now he is a teacher for lighting design students at the university in Jönköping.

As a lighting designer, he is convinced that we can only build the good visual space if we do it together. Working with light is never solitary. It is also only in the encounter with the human mind that light becomes images, feelings, and perception at all.

Johan has been in Alingsås several times before, either by supporting his students who participated in the workshop, or as in 2018, when he was Workshop Head for Lights in Alingsås for the first time.

“I find my inspiration in nature. As a forest owner, I have the joy of being able to observe nature’s need for light in order to live at a very close range. To see how everything strives and competes for a place in the light. I see all of us as creatures of light. That’s where I do my learning. From the grey embrace of a shadowless November day to the sun’s play through the trees in the forest and the sparkle of stars in fresh snow. Every day is a field trip from the moment my eyes open until they close. Everywhere I can learn more about light, materials, and experiences. The journey that began 20 years ago as a lighting designer feels like it’s just beginning. There’s so much left to learn”, says Johan.

Valerie is a lighting designer at AE Design in Denver, Colorado, USA. She has over a decade of diverse industry experience after finding her love for lighting design in theatre, opera, and dance, then expanding into architectural and experiential design. She has been an Associate Lighting Designer on Broadway, including the Tony Award-winning Parade and The Sound Inside, along with dozens of productions off-Broadway and on domestic and international tours.

Valerie holds a degree in Lighting Design and Stage Management from Fordham University in New York. She has her NCQLP Lighting Certificate (LC) and LEED Green Associate Certification and is Associate Member of the IALD (International Associations of Lighting Designers), IES (Illuminating Engineering Society), and Denver’s Women in Lighting Design chapter.

She deeply values the hands-on experience the Alingsås workshop provides and has extensive on-site focus experience including new exhibitions at the New York Public Library, Frick Madison, and Morgan Library & Museum. Valerie’s architectural portfolio includes academic, civic, cultural, healthcare, residential, hospitality, and performing arts projects.

Valerie has a passion for teaching and a commitment to mentorship. She says, “I am very fortunate to say that my career has been shaped by a series of mentors I deeply admire. I’ve heard before, “true leaders don’t create followers; they create more leaders.” It has always been a goal of mine to pay this mentorship forward and to support the next generation the way I have been supported.”

Chayot is a lighting designer with an educational and professional background in Architectural Design. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. During his prior practice as an architect in a firm specializing in designing large-scale public buildings and convention centers, his passion for lighting design developed and he was inquisitive about utilizing lighting to complement architectural expressions and spaces, creating a new dimension to the architecture.

Lighting was always one of the fields that Chayot always wished to discover more while practising architectural design. His curious mind guided him to pursue lighting design to explore the power of light to transform built environments. He eventually worked as a lighting designer in Thailand, UAE, and Singapore. The more he worked with light, the more he found lighting design intriguing and influential, and a long learning journey is still awaiting him.

He is an Associate Member of the IALD and a Certified Lighting Designer (CLD) and was awarded 40 under 40 class of 2022.

“Having followed the event and been amazed by past Lights in Alingsås workshops since 2019, I am thrilled to become a workshop head to spread my love of light and experiment with the nature of light in a different geographical and cultural context. I am truly inspired to work with the team, talented students, workshop heads, and all the specialists to create a wonderful attraction this year”, says Chayot.