The opening of Collect last week was a powerful reminder that light does far more than illuminate – it connects.
As the fair’s lighting partner, our team worked across multiple exhibitions and installations, responding quickly and carefully to each space. The challenge is always balance: every artwork needs its own voice, but the fair still needs a sense of cohesion. Light is what makes that possible.
We were especially proud to open our new TM Gallery outpost presenting Textildermy by Carmen Mardonez, curated by Hannah Payne Art. This was a true collaboration where the artist, curator, space and light worked together from the start. Lighting wasn’t an afterthought, but part of the foundation.
Our high colour rendition approach was essential here. Carmen’s work is incredibly nuanced. She splices together multiple coloured cotton strands to create her own threads before weaving them into embroidery. There are layers of pigment within pigment. Texture within texture. To reveal that depth, the response through our work at TM Lighting, has to be both scientific and sensitive.
“Light doesn’t just sit on the surface, it travels through fibre, across pigment and into shadow. It reveals structure, but it also reveals emotion”.
One moment that stood out was lighting Studio Sumakshi Singh’s Monument for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize exhibition. In that installation, shadow was as important as the object itself. Achieving a crisp, intentional projection (without spill or distraction) required precision and restraint.
In the Collectors’ Lounge, designed by Tola Ojuolape, light shifted its role once again. It softened edges, guided movement and created moments of pause. The same medium with a completely different outcome.
Across every space – TM Gallery, the Loewe prize exhibition and the Lounge – the intention remained the same: coherence. Different designers, materials and energies with one luminous thread running through them all.
“For me, this project reinforced the fact that lighting is a connective tissue, binding the artwork, architecture, and viewer”.
– Andrew Molyneux, Founder and Director, TM Lighting
With thanks to TF Chan, Hannah Payne, Carmen Mardonez, Loewe, Loewe Contemporary Art, Tola Ojuolape and Crafts Council , plus all of our creative partners.