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Paola Jose is a Mexican lighting designer, founder of SOMBRA an architectural lighting design studio based in Mexico City. Paola studied mechanical engineering at the University of Texas and a master of science in architectural lighting design at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in Stockholm, Sweden. Her work emphasizes the opposition to the over illumination and her constant fight to pursue the power of darkness in the creation of spaces that oscillate between the poetical and the practical, echoing her constant explorations on nocturnal geographies.

Her primary interests are the search of darkness on this over-illuminated spaces/cities. Darkness has become a luxury, we are so disconnected to this very natural phenomenon that artificial light has taken away from us.

Likewise the past years, loss has become a primary inspiration on her work. The Yacaman collection is the first series of luminaires designed by Paola Jose. The project has a personal and profound meaning: it is a tribute to her father and grandfather, both doctors, brilliant, and both departed.These luminous objects are the creation of a living memory, a memory that will remain
present, infinite. When Paola was a child, she used to visit them at their medical office and saw these giant metallic objects, these luminaires that directed light towards the patient’s wound to heal. Now, these objects make sense to her, to her work, to her memories, to her lineage.
Convex figures project a distorted light yet warm and subtle. A golden light expands, travels through space, and heals, just like the great Doctor Yacaman.