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LUCI Cities & Lighting Summit
Oulu
Plenary Sessions
Ari Alatossava, Mayor of Oulu
Ari Alatossava has been serving as the Mayor of Oulu City (Finland) since April 2024. He transitioned to this role from his position as the Director of Finance, Strategy and Corporate Governance division, which he has held since February 2022.
Mr. Alatossava has over twenty years of leadership experience. Prior to his current role, he served as the Mayor of Municipality of Ii for seven years, and before that, he held the position of CEO for 15 years, working in various capacities related to business development, technology centers, and regional development. He holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Oulu.
Kari Nykänen, City Planning Director at City of Oulu
Kari Nykänen is the City Planning Director for the City of Oulu. He is responsible for steering strategic land use, urban functions and new developments. His special interests are sustainability, climate consciousness and citizen’s well-being. He is also keen on developing planning tools and participation methods to affirm community values, needs and aspirations.
He has been awarded in several urban planning and design competitions. Prior to his current position, he ran his own architectural studio M3 Architects and taught urban design at the University of Oulu.
LUCI Talks
Jason Bruges, Artist and Founder of the Jason Bruges Studio
Jason Bruges is a multidisciplinary artist and designer, based in London. Internationally renowned as a pioneer of the hybrid space between art, architecture, and technology, his artworks are moments of theatre that transform in response to their surroundings and connect people with their environments.
A master of light and kinetic art, he uses a high-tech, mixed-media palette to explore spectacle, time-based interventions, and dynamic immersive experiences.
After studying architecture at the Bartlett (UCL), Jason worked at Foster + Partners for three years and then Imagination as a senior interaction designer. In 2002, he set up Jason Bruges Studio where he works with a talented team to deliver impactful, boundary-pushing art projects world-wide. Jason is a passionate educator and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Media Architecture Award for Where Do We Go From Here? a ground-breaking, urban-scale, robotic intervention created for Hull UK City of Culture 2017.
Kristin Bredal, Chapter leader for Norway in IALD Nordic Chapter & Founder of Zenisk
the founder of Zenisk, a design office specialised in light plans for urban areas, architectural lighting design, light art, and exhibition design.
After attending the Master of Fine Arts program in Theatre Design at Yale University, she was performing as freelance set and lighting designer for the stage from 1994-2009, gradually doing more and more urban and architectural projects from 2001. Kristin holds several awards both as lighting designer for the stage and for architecture and urban. Kristin is still active in stage design and her work for this field includes more than 100 lighting designs for numerous productions at various stages across Europe.
Kristin Bredal founded Zenisk in 2009, after being active in the field of architectural lighting design for several years. She got engaged in public lighting because of the lack of aesthetics and little care for soul and human wellbeing in the urban environment. From her conceptual work for theatre, she translates her methods to the architectural field, believing that lighting design can express meaning and convey clear identity in its expression. She has been designing lighting for a broad field, ranging from master light plans, exhibition spaces, through façade mapping to architectural lighting and light art. Sustainability is not only a box to tick for her, but it is a core value that she implements in all projects through concrete actions, well developed approach, process and method.
Kristin Bredal is active in organisational work. She is currently Chapter leader for Norway in IALD Nordic Chapter. Kristin Bredal is Certified Lighting Designer, CLD and professional member of IALD.
Parallel Sessions
Karri Oikarinen, Project Director for Oulu Experience Arena at City of Oulu
(more details to be published soon)
Moderators
Henrika Pihlajaniemi, Associate Professor at University of Oulu & Project Coordinator of Art of Darkness
Architect (M.Sc.), D.Sc.(Tech) Henrika Pihlajaniemi works as an associate professor at the Oulu School of Architecture, University of Oulu. She lectures and teaches sustainable architecture, as well as architectural and urban lighting, and leads research projects related to lighting and sustainability. Her research has covered themes of daylighting design, ecological housing, participatory design, adaptive and intelligent lighting, lighting-related well-being, and lighting education.
Her recent research projects scrutinise the design perspectives of sustainable darkness. She currently leads a Europe-wide consortium studying Art of Darkness – the use of well-considered darkness to enhance and develop urban and cultural heritage contexts.
Additionally, she works as a lighting design consultant in her architectural office (M3 Architects). Her completed lighting design projects include lighting master plans, urban parks, public buildings, light art, and luminaires. She and M3 Architects have received numerous awards in national and international architectural and urban design competitions.
Gregorio Lucena Scarpella, Director of the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN)
Gregorio Lucena Scarpella is the Director of the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN), a membership organisation of over 70 international cultural districts with a mission to improve the quality of urban life through the arts, culture and creative industries.
As Director of GCDN, Greg is responsible for the management and development of the network and the stewardship of its members. He devises the network’s overall strategy and oversees its portfolio of content and activities, including the GCDN annual convening – a flagship event which brings together members as well as other civic and cultural leaders from around the world and provides a unique forum for the development of new ideas and collaborations.
Greg holds a Master’s degree in Arts & Cultural Management at King’s College London, and a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and English Linguistics & Literature from Université de Neuchâtel. Born in Brazil into a multicultural family, Greg was raised in Switzerland and is fluent in English, French, Portuguese and Italian.
Piia Rantala-Korhonen, CEO of the Oulu Culture Foundation
(more details to be published soon)