Archive

Getting dreams off the ground

Manuel Lobão

OPEN CLASS
NOVEMBER 18TH OF 2024, 10AM
ROOM 32 OF EP1 – ESAD.CR

Manuel Lobão has a long history of building exhibitions and sets for cinema, theatre and advertising. He starts from projects, schemes, drawings and ideas from creatives in order, as he himself defines it, to get dreams off the ground.  His studio is both a warehouse filled with materials, tools and structures and a collection that documents his career.  The mounting and dismounting of each project takes him to different spaces that he transforms on a daily basis.  His working days are rarely quiet, but it is the constant change, this construction of worlds, that fulfils him.  In this open class Manuel Lobão presents his work, with an emphasis on the construction and installation of exhibitions and sets, the teams, the planning and organisation, the materials and the work processes that are part of his routine.

Manuel Lobão began his career in 1989 as a set designer in film and theatre, working on projects for various directors such as Manoel de Oliveira, Joaquim Pinto, Flora Gomes, Leão Lopes, Manuel Mozos, João Canijo, Bertrand Tavernier, and companies such as Cornucópia, Artistas Unidos and others. Since 1994, he has also worked on building and setting up exhibitions, including: World Press Photo – Cordoaria Nacional – Lisbon Capital of Culture, Biennial of Young Creators from Europe and the Mediterranean – Lisbon Capital of Culture, Modigliani – Drawings – Culturgest, Centenary of the Porto School of Fine Arts – Alfândega Velha Building – Porto School of Fine Arts.
In addition, he has taken part in a number of advertising shoots with the main production companies in the market, always diversifying the areas in which he works, extending to furniture for innovative shops such as Vida Portuguesa, or various events for Lux-Frágil, or collaborating in the execution of countless pieces for visual artists such as Fernanda Fragateiro, Pedro Portugal, Alberto Plácido or Joana Vasconcelos, or even architectural installations for Nadir Bonaccorso, Irmãos Mateus, Filipe Jorge from Argumentum or Carrilho da Graça.
In recent years, the projects he has worked on include collaborating with the National Palace of Sintra in its refurbishment process, with various productions of pieces and setting up rooms, various exhibitions for the Science Museum or the Italian Cultural Institute, and accompanying some national and international film productions such as Damsel-Netflix or Ivo Ferreira’s Global Project. While maintaining all these areas of interest and this multidisciplinary character, he found a natural partner in the Letreiro Galeria Project, with the privilege of taking part in this extraordinary journey and this vital recovery of graphic heritage, having collaborated with Rita Múrias and Paulo Barata on the latest fantastic exhibitions such as BrilhaRio or Estabelecimentos. ‘It’s been more than 30 years of accompanying fantastic people and teams towards the realisation of the wonderful dreams of someone who arrives with an idea, often scribbled on a simple sheet of paper.’