2022 屏东热带农业回顾展丨Atelier Boter

Firm： Atelier Boter

Type： Commercial › Exhibition Center Pop-Up Cultural › Gallery

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2022

SIZE： 5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft

BUDGET： $10K - 50K

"Confident Terroir, Confident People" is the curator's interpretation of the eight-year retrospective of the Pingtung Tropical Agriculture Expo. Agriculture plays a crucial role to industry, just as the countryside is to the city. While we crouch down to farm, we moving forward confidently.

The exhibition is divided into three areas: the retrospective information, rice paddy installation and 3D projection area. We placed a large U-shaped partition wall to define the 200-square-meter exhibition space. One side of the wall is the retrospective information at the entrance, whereas the back is used as a 3D projection area. The partition wall is allegedly placed to merge with the existing thick columns of the exhibition space in order to hide the volume of the columns. The construction cost per foot is carefully considered while planning the partition wall, the both sides of it are utilized in order to effectively control the construction budget.

In farming, change of colour is the nature's language with the farmers. Green is the colour of new growth in fertile soil, representing new life and hopefulness. In the retrospective information exhibition, green lights are used to symbolise the courage of Pingtung in agriculture. At the turning point as one enters the paddy installation area, red banquet tables are used to reminiscent traditional harvest celebrations as a metaphor of receiving a gift from nature.

The red banquet tables consist of detachable light-weighted fibreglass tabletops and folding table legs in order to be conveniently stored and moved around. We make good use of this advantage by customizing table legs into different heights to form a continuous table display of harvest. The golden rice plants are inserted into the holes of horizontal double layered pegboards, with the lower layer deliberately revealed to fulfill the viewers' curiosity on what happens under the surface.

It is always our greatest principle to minimize waste in our exhibition projects. When the exhibition ends, we will distribute the red banquet tables to those who will utilize them. The end of the exhibition will thus be transformed into a continuation of material use. Through design, we put the past into the present, and will continue to learn from every exhibition.