Exhibition design for Fundação EDP, with António Pedro Louro
and Gonçalo Prudêncio
Lisbon, 2012
What is Laugh? What makes you, us, Laught? What kind of Laught is it? Humor vs Laughthing? What are the limits of Laughing? What about the morphology of Laughing?
The need for a definition Laughing as a gathering theme for this exhibition, was as challenging as the exhibition’s design process for finding a set for the around 500 art and multimedia pieces selected. The result was probably the opposite of what’s usually thought and designed as a background for the art piece. Not neutral. Not immaculate. The need for a lively and metaphorical space, but still flexible and able to engage and guide the visitor while discovering a considerably dense and eclectic number of contents, lead us to this solution.
The result is an orthogonal grid 70x70x70cm in natural pinewood profile that fills the voids of the impotent industrial exhibition venue at Museu da Electricidade. With more then 12 meter high, the solution taken is a dense, but still transparent and human volume lined in between the original industrial metallic structures from the original space. The gaps in this volume shape the visitors path on a rhythmic assortment of corridors, small rooms, large rooms, narrow corridors, tunnels or squares.The sequence aims to surprise the visitor while revealing the pieces according to thematic groups within the Laughing umbrella. The transparency of the volume allows a visual crossed contamination from different thematic groups reconnecting with the idea of the immateriality and boundless of Laughting as a subject.
The adopted constructive system was designed focusing on the disassemble of the exhibition concerning the full preservation and reuse of all used constructive elements for future transformation into other projects.

José Manuel dos Santos
João Pinharanda
Nuno Artur Silva
Nuno Crespo
Assistant Curators
Joana Simões Henriques
José Machado
Exhibition Design
António Pedro Louro
Gonçalo Prudêncio
Pedro Ferreira
Rita João
Graphic Design
Vera Tavares
Culture Adviser
António Soares
Production
Margarida Almeida Chantre
Aires Duarte
Fernando Ribeiro
Pascal Carvalho
Conservation and Register
Margarida Almeida Chantre
Joana Simões Henriques
Management and Legal Assistance
António Guimarães Verdial
Construction
Eurostand
Setting
Museu da Eletricidade
SET UP
Balaclava Noir
Visitor Service
Raquel Eleutério (Coordination)
Ana Cachado
Jorge Batista
Maria José Dantas