On the evening of 24 October 2023, we opened a small exhibition in our Beijing showroom and gave it the name we had been using in the workshop for years: Stories of Light. Twelve lamps stood on low plinths along the windows, and beside each one lay a card in a maker's handwriting — the account of how that particular form came to hold light.

Twelve lamps, twelve accounts

The pieces were not our newest. They were the ones with the longest histories: a wall lamp that went through eleven prototypes before the gold leaf sat still, a table light whose copper disc was spun by hand until the surface learned to breathe, a pendant we first showed in our earliest years and have kept in the collection ever since. The cards told of failed evenings and small victories — the moment a wick of light finally behaved the way the sketch had promised.

On Fridays we left the showroom open until late. Our gilders and glassblowers took turns answering questions, and the conversations drifted, as they always do, from technique to patience. A lamp, we found ourselves saying again and again, is mostly waiting made visible.

Three weeks of visitors

Over three weeks, students, interior designers and neighbours from the tower above came down to look. We kept a notebook by the door for anyone who wanted to leave a line. By the closing evening it was full — of thanks, mostly, and of questions about where light goes when a room forgets it.

"I came to see lamps and left thinking about hands." — a visitor, second weekend

Stories of Light was never meant to be large. It was meant to be honest: twelve objects, twelve makers, one room with the windows lit until the street went quiet. We told twelve stories. There are more.