A man of many talents, Francois Migeon has been president of the French association of lighting designers for three years, while also taking part in artistic activity in the urban landscape.
Francois Migeon began his career as part of the Plasticien artists movement, which was characterised by the concept of the “objectification of art”. For more than 15 years he worked on the theme of the urban landscape, painting murals, and he collaborated with a large number of architects and urban planners. For Migeon, a wall in the city was a blank canvas; in time he also turned to the three-dimensional form of objects, in the shape of sculptures and installations in the city. In 1983 he founded the company Grandeur Nature with Michelle Salmon, which operated until 2003, while he continued to work in the fields of street art and the urban landscape.
Lighting has been an inseparable part of Francois Migeon‘s artistic path. As he puts it, “lighting design developed out of street art. From early on I felt the need to light my sculptures. Materials change with the passing of time, and what remains is light. I wasn’t interested in daylight; I concentrated on artificial lighting.”
During his student years, Francois Migeon met Georges Berne, now an established designer of museum lighting, and the meeting proved decisive. Over the years they worked together on a number of projects, one as a specialist in urban matters and the other as a specialist in lighting. In 2008 they co-founded the company 8’8″, carrying out projects and providing lighting design consultancy.
Beyond practical work, Francois Migeon is interested in the development potential of the profession and in how it evolves. As president of the French association of lighting designers ACE for the past few years, he believes in restructuring the profession so that research and technical work can be combined with artistic work.
An essential prerequisite is cooperation between people from different disciplines, such as lighting designers, engineers, architects and landscape architects. Asked about the purpose of the association’s work, Migeon says that “the basic idea is the lighting of the city, that is, of the landscape and of the architecture. Lighting plays a primary role in the work of those involved in architecture and landscape. The association aims to make workers and contractors realise that lighting design and lighting management are a profession.”
On the subject of city lighting, Francois Migeon says that “there are some cities where I feel good when I’m there because they have been lit intelligently. Illuminated monuments, and points and perspectives in the space that draw the eye, are combined with areas that have deliberately been left out and kept dark.
With time I find myself increasingly opposed to lighting projects that make the city look perfect for a photo shoot, or as if it had leapt from the pages of a product catalogue. We need to stop generalising about the spaces that are lit and instead distinguish them by their function and their place within the city, the way they are used, their rhythms… in other words, everything that identifies a space.”
The full interview was published on the Mondo Arc website: http://www.mondoarc.com/
Photo: Sophie Roussel – Tixier
