Mark Choi 2 min read

Back in the design classroom.

Eleven years after a student project led me toward lighting design, I returned to the same class as a guest critic. The visit made the reach of a teacher’s work unusually clear.

Back at Emily Carr, after the second-year dynamic lighting critique.

I returned to Emily Carr University of Art and Design as a guest critic for a dynamic lighting project in the second-year Industrial Design class. Eleven years earlier, I had been sitting in that exact class, doing that exact assignment.

That project sparked my interest in lighting design. It played a big part in landing my first job at Kuzco Lighting, a relationship I continue to this day. Coming back to the same room brought the beginning of that relationship into view again.

An assignment has a deadline. The interest it opens up can last much longer. Eleven years later, lighting is still part of my working life.

Mark’s 2015 slatted wooden lighting project laid flat — My dynamic lighting project from 2015, laid flat and formed into a loop. Returning to these photographs brings the starting point of my interest in lighting back into view.

The same wooden lighting project curved into a loop with warm light inside — My dynamic lighting project from 2015, laid flat and formed into a loop. Returning to these photographs brings the starting point of my interest in lighting back into view.

This time, I was there to see what the current students had done with the brief. Their ideas were impressive. Those three hours were some of the best I’d spent in a while. The familiarity of the assignment made it especially meaningful: the project that had opened a direction for me was still giving other students something to explore.

None of that happens on its own. Christian Blyt was shaping designers at Emily Carr before I became a student, and he still is. He has always made a point of bringing industry professionals into the classroom. A visit like mine is one small part of that ongoing effort. For the students, it is a chance to talk about their work with someone practising beyond the school. For me, it was a reminder of how much can begin there.

That investment reaches beyond the classroom. An assignment ends, a class moves on, and the work continues elsewhere. Sometimes, eleven years later, one of those students comes back through the door.

I’m grateful Christian invited me. And I’m grateful for the reminder that something which still matters to me began in that room.