red tunnels and speech bubbles fill studio 10's exhibition of chinese comics

dynamic red tunnels shoot you through to floating neon speech bubbles in the y-comic-x? exhibition of chinese comics. architecture firm studio 10 designed the exhibition of chinese comics for the design society at the sea world culture and arts center in shenzhen, china. the concept for their design was a narrative drawing that takes the two-dimensional media and transforms it to the three-dimensional world of space and geometries, and the four-dimensional realm of movement and time.

while comics use a storyboard to express narrative order, studio10 used painted lines, neon lights and pops of red to convert them into three-dimensional spaces for the exhibition. through the abstraction of commonly present elements in comics such as frames, profiles, storyboards, brush strokes and so on, the design explores the transformation to the physical, spatial realm. throughout all 6 chapters of the exhibition space, the 3D, painted and surface elements allow the audience to be immersed in a multi-dimensional world of comics, to explore its dynamic trans-dimensional interactions, and more importantly, to have fun.

guided by graphics and bold colors, guests travel through the exhibition that displays comics framed on walls and painted on murals. the journey concludes in an open white space, with floating neon speech bubbles overhead and an amphitheater seating layout. the exhibition design truly epitomizes the characteristics of comics and brings them to the built world.

project info:

location: sea world culture and arts center, l1 main venue, 1187 wanghai road, shekou, nanshan, shenzhen, china

status: completed july, 2019

exhibition duration: july 20, 2019 – september 30, 2019

area: 1280 sqm

curator: design society

curatorial consultants: cheng jin, paul gravett, ning wang, kai yan

exhibition design consultant: studio 10

principal-in-charge: shi zhou

design team: chunhui mo, xin zheng, meishi zhao, zixia huang, cristina moreno cabello, hao wu (intern) , yue yu(intern), liangyu shen(intern), ming tang (project assistant), jiaxiao bao(project assistant)

graphic design consultant: suredesign

photographer: chao zhang

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: cristina gomez | designboom