The Illuminating Engineering Society New York City Section Presents the 2016 Student Lighting Competition

	Donald Holder. Photo: Mike Stog Photography

Now in its 16th year, the Student Lighting Competition, a signature project of the Illuminating Engineering Society New York City Section (IESNYC), showcases the work of New York City college and university design students on Tuesday, March 8, at The 404 Event Space -- 404 10th Avenue, near Penn Station. The event is free and open to all with RSVP.

As in previous years, students are challenged to apply their education, ingenuity, and skills in order to take an elusive concept and transform it into a three-dimensional illuminated visual experience. All submissions will be on exhibit for this one night only, winners will be announced, and theatrical lighting designer Donald Holder will deliver the keynote address. In addition, the evening presents a valuable networking environment in which highly creative and talented students can meet with prospective employers.

Each year the theme is selected by the Student Lighting competition committee, chaired by Erin Gussert, lighting designer at Regency Lighting and member of the IESNYC board of managers. The theme of this year's competition -- Temporal Illuminance -- is about the perception of time and the interaction between variations in the quality of light and time -- whether slow and subtle, quick and intermittent, or entirely random. "We may forget how dependent we are on lighting to mark the passage of time," says Gussert, "but it is a relationship which can be designed and controlled." Shaun Fillion, LC, senior designer at RAB Lighting, member of the IESNYC board of managers, and advisor to the committee, adds that "we thought of being inside a casino with no exterior views where hours can pass without guests noticing."

Over 150 lighting design students attending Cornell University's School of Architecture, NYC Campus; Columbia University; Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT); Fordham University; New York School of Interior Design (NYSID); Parsons The New School of Design; Pratt Institute; and School of Visual Arts (SVA), are expected to exhibit their installations. The IESNYC Student Competition has been incorporated into the curriculum of several lighting classes throughout the schools and has piqued an interest in lighting design of over a thousand design students to date. A jury, composed of lighting and design professionals, will select first, second, and third prize winners, who will win cash awards of $2,000, $1,000, and $500 respectively. Additional prizes will be awarded to other notable projects. A sampling of the caliber of work submitted to the competition from previous years can be seen by clicking https://vimeo.com/121626328 and http://vimeo.com/65338227. (Videos courtesy Colin J. Weber)

When considering the use of light to manipulate our sense of time, the event keynote speaker Holder, principal lighting designer of Donald Holder Lighting Design, "is unquestionably a master," says Fillion, "and in a given theatrical performance, he transports his audience to different worlds, where time accelerates, skips, and jumps, and slows to a crawl to support the narrative of the performance." Holder has said that "one of the roles of a lighting designer is to be an illusionist...to convince the audience that they are someplace special." That place might be Russia (Fiddler on the Roof, currently running on Broadway), or the South Pacific (for which he won a Tony Award in 2008), or Africa (as in The Lion King, the winner of both a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for his lighting design). Holder has been nominated for 11 Tony Awards. Throughout his 25-year career, he has been the lighting designer for musicals and plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway, the leading resident theatres throughout the country, and television sound stages.

One of the goals of the IESNYC is to promote education and greater awareness about the importance of lighting and the Student Lighting Competition is one of the contributors towards these efforts. The competition is open to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a lighting class at a New York City-based college or university and draws students in inter-disciplinary academic programs such as architecture, interior design, industrial design, engineering, in addition to lighting design.

Last year, 153 projects designed by students attending Columbia University, Cooper Union, Cornell's School of Architecture (New York City campus), Fordham University, New York School of Interior Design, Parsons The New School for Design, and Pratt Institute were on exhibit. The IESNYC Student Competition has been incorporated into the curriculum lighting classes in several area schools and has piqued an interest in lighting design of over a thousand design students to date.

For the third consecutive year, the event is being held in honor of Patricia Di Maggio (1964-2014), LC, a lighting project design manager at Osram Sylvania and a lighting educator at New York School of Interior Design (NYSID). Di Maggio started the Student Lighting Competition during her tenure as president of the IESNYC (2004-2005).

The Student Lighting Competition is sponsored by the 2016 IESNYC Calendar Sponsors. Platinum Sponsors - Enterprise Lighting Sales and RAB Lighting; Gold - Amerlux, Building Energy Exchange, International Lights, Stan Deutsch Associates; Silver - Current, powered by GE, The Dulanski Group, FLOS, Lutron Electronics, O'Blaney Rinker Associates, Osram Sylvania; Bronze - A&L Lighting, Edison Price, Lighting Abilities, PowerSecure Lighting/Solais, Tillotson Design Associates, Xicato; Studio - RS Lighting Design, and Shimstone Design Studio.

The event is free and open to the public with registered RSVP.