A DIALOGUE WITH LIGHT

Antoni Arola’s installation in collaboration with Santa & Cole at the KARIMOKU RESEARCH CENTER in Tokyo, until November 5th, is an exhibition that explores the many ways in which the Spanish designer’s practice engages in a dialogue with light, offering distinct perspectives through immersive installation, product design, and the creative process.

“Colour, intensity, gradients, magic… Light expresses itself. In the end, light is just an excuse to play. That act of play—on a different scale and with a more emotional approach- has led me in recent years to light installations,” stated Antoni Arola.

In almost all cultures, trees have been a symbolic and sacred representation of a transcendent reality. They embody the world in expansion, concentration, and ascension, while also linking earth and sky—from the deepest roots to the highest leaves that seek the light—anchored to the ground yet reaching toward the spirituality of paradise.

Trees have also served humanity as raw material and resource, allowing us to grow and develop as a civilisation. A tree is a world of its own: with its complexity and unique beauty, its robustness and balance, it reflects the harmony of an ideal ecosystem.

Antoni Arola’s “A Dialogue with Light”, in collaboration with Santa & Cole at the KARIMOKU RESEARCH CENTER in Tokyo until November 5th, is an exhibition that explores the many ways in which the Spanish designer’s practice engages in a dialogue with light, offering distinct perspectives through immersive installation, product design, and the creative process.

It offers a luminous immersion that reconnects us with nature. At its centre stands the tree, whose fragile branches spin slowly in the dimness of the room, sketching a radiant geography. It is a space that awakens the senses through filtered light and shadow, inviting us to reflect on possible realities and other worlds.

Antoni Arola’s work emerges from an open-ended process where intuition, observation, chance, and the playfulness of materials converge. His pieces—whether luminaires or light installations—do not begin with a fixed function or predetermined form. Instead, they unfold through silent discoveries and unexpected associations, revealing themselves gradually in a search to understand and shape light.

The exhibition unfolds across three levels, beginning with a sensory immersion in light, followed by a presentation of his lamps edited by Santa & Cole, and concluding with a glimpse into the creative universe of Antoni Arola.

Each level offers a unique encounter—immersive, spatial, intuitive—together forming a portrait of his practice as an ongoing conversation with the intangible presence of light.

“Light is everything. Without it, design would not exist—nothing would. That is what draws me in: it is immaterial. My lamps are not about form; what draws me in is the play of light,” said Antoni Arola.

Antoni Arola’s work is grounded in a clear premise: to engage in a dialogue with light in order to understand it, temper it, and give it a specific purpose. Light—intense, at times even uncomfortable—is approached with respect and precision, guided gently until it becomes tamed.

This central floor presents a curated selection of luminaires edited by Santa & Cole. Through scenographic compositions—such as the rhythmic verticality of a Moaré column or the floating lightness of Lámina Dorada—light takes on its own rhythm and structure.

A highlight among the pieces is the Shiro Wood lamp, developed in collaboration with Karimoku Furniture, the Japanese company known for its artisanal woodcraft. This new version complements the original metal finish, bringing a natural warmth to interior spaces.

Also featured are Alto & Volta, a duo of wooden stools originally conceived through a collaboration with African craftmanship, specifically by artisans near Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon – embodying a spirit of cooperation rooted in local knowledge and cultural exchange. Though born from this context, the pieces now find new meaning in Japan, where the dialogue continues through shared values of craft, precision, and respect for material.

“Antoni Arola’s studio unfolds in rhythmic movements—shifting, mutating, and adapting. Chaos, regarded as a necessary prelude, gives rise to a world of its own: an autonomous ecosystem nourished by the personal, the spiritual, and the invisible.”, said Antoni Arola.

Here, a fragment of that universe is brought into focus—where intuition precedes form, guided by an attentive gaze that searches, perceives, and questions. In this experimental space, fragments, sketches, and prototypes converge around light.