Equity in Lighting Design New York City

#Blackout has come and gone, social media pages have, for the most part, returned back to normal however the injustices towards Black Indigenous People Of Color (BIPOC) is still prevalent particularly in the United States of America. Countless times we have seen Black people be unjustly killed by the police and people justifying their deaths because of their social status, education, financial status, what they wear or how they act. Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are a few of the names that come to mind on this topic. It has been proven that systematically minorities in America, particularly BIPOC have been held back from achieving similar wealth than their white counterparts long after years of slavery. These oppressive systems have come in many forms Jim Crow, Segregation, Red Lining, and the War on Drugs to name a few. The negative results of these oppressive systems allow those unaffected and unaware by them to justify the deaths of unarmed Black people by the police in America.

The social landscape we are currently in has unveiled a lot of disparities within many communities and the lighting community is no exception. Fortunately, social media has been a great tool for further educating us on other’s experiences with prejudice and discrimination within many aspects in our industry. The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD NY), the Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY), the New York chapter of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNYC) and the New York chapter of Women in Lighting & Design (WILD NYC) gave birth to Equity in Lighting Design NYC (ELD NYC), an organization whose goal is to close the gap of divide within our community.

ELD NYC was spearheaded by Moxie’s own Elaine Cook as well as Francesca Bastianini of Sighte Studio and Lana Lenar of zeroLUX lighting design. For the past two weeks, ELD NYC has been conducting a community-wide survey to address the barriers of entry into the New York City Lighting community. If you have been following our social media pages, you may have seen links to the survey multiples times and hopefully you have filled it out at least once. If you have not, click here to fill out the survey. If you have, please encourage your colleagues, bosses, and friends within the lighting community to do the same. This survey will be closed on September 14, 2020, at noon so only a few more days until ELD NYC can hear your valuable input on our community and how we should proceed moving forward.