To the members of the lighting community in NYC,
Over the past couple of months, the Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY), the New York chapter of the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD NY), the New York chapter of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESNYC), and the New York chapter of Women in Lighting & Design (WILD NYC) have come together to create Equity in Lighting Design NYC (ELD NYC), spearheaded by Elaine Cook of Moxie Lighting, Francesca Bastianini of Sighte Studio, and Lana Lenar of zeroLUX lighting design.
The goal of ELD NYC is to commence a longterm initiative to address diversity and inclusion within the lighting community. Our hope is that we can strengthen this community by having it reflect the diversity of our country through the tools of outreach, educational events, and industry policy. To start this process we have developed a survey that will help us determine a quantitative baseline of the demographics and background of the New York Lighting community. The baseline will allow us to focus our efforts to address the barriers of entry into our industry and understand how we should move forward. Below is a link to a community-wide survey that we are asking you to fill out. The survey is entirely optional, and identifying information will be kept separate from data. We urge you to complete the survey and encourage your colleagues, bosses, and friends within the lighting community to fill it out as well. You may receive the link to this survey multiple times, but please only fill it out once. Please note that the survey will be closed on August 31, 2020, at noon.
In addition to gathering a baseline of diversity, we hope to collect any feedback from the community on how we might proceed, along with a call for volunteers as we move forward.
Please reach out to eld.newyork@gmail.com or you can DM us on Instagram at @equityinlightingdesignnyc if you have any questions or comments that are not covered by the survey.
Yours Sincerely,
Equity in Lighting Design
Elaine, Francesca, & Lana