Since the Age of Discovery, Portugal and Asia engaged in cultural and commercial transactions. This travelling exhibition was planned as a diplomatic initiative, celebrating the interchange between these two distant backgrounds. Materials on display, such as handcrafted artifacts, gave evidence of this mutual influence within a flexible spatial environment. While avoiding exotic allusions to Asia, the layout employed some of its traditional references. Devised as a podium, the floor of the exhibition area was subdivided according to the metrics of tatami. Silkscreened textiles clad a series of vertical partitions, while a column carved in wood was at the center. This gilded arabesque was a symbol for the entire exhibition and its design, somewhere between abstraction and figuration.
Date: 2010 | Location: Lisbon, Portugal | Client: Instituto Camões | Architecture: Patrícia Barbas, Diogo Lopes