experimenta
Lisboa, Portugal, 2024
Co-creation and co-foundation of experimenta, a non-profit cultural association based in Lisbon.
Co-designed and co-founded by GMG in collaboration with designers Marco Sousa Santos and José Viana in 1998, experimenta is a knowledge production unit and a disseminator of contents in the area of design, architecture and culture based in Lisbon, having become one of the country’s most important culture associations throughout its 24 years of existence, equally impactful in an international context. Guta is experimenta’s chairwoman since 2000.
Involving creative, management, production and communication teams of reference throughout its years of activity, among which stand out João Paulo Feliciano, Pedro Gadanho, Inês Lamim, Levina Valentim, Marina Gomes Alexandre, Mário Carneiro, Teresa Oliveira, Patricia Domingos, Miguel Vieira Baptista, Fernando Brízio, Ana Caldeano, Paula Melâneo, Marco Reixa, Nuno Luz, Pedro Franco, Max Bruinsma, Ed Annink, Emily Campbel, Joseph Grima, Stefan Sagmeister, Hans Maier-Aichen, Mateo Kries, Tiago Machado, Luis Ferreira, Margarida Vilhena, Joana Morais and Miguel Corte-Real, as well as diverse collective partners, some from an institutional context, the activity of experimenta is grounded in contemporaneity, exploring various fields of artistic creation, as well as material and conceptual production, perceiving design as the operative subject and working methodology.
One of the founding and most celebrated projects of experimenta was EXD, the experimentadesign biennial, which happened in Lisbon from 1999 to 2017, having also had an edition in Amsterdam in 2008. The association also developed, throughout the years, several national and international projects, collaborating with over 51 countries.
Most of the projects produced by experimenta were offered to a national and international public as free of charge, having been financed through protocols with the State, local authorities, institutions and companies, national and international, as well as using community funds through applications.
The association has never benefited from any regular financial subsidy to support its work, and since 2015 it has financed its projects exclusively through funds generated by services, partnerships with private and institutional partners and applications for European or national funds.
The association was firstly based at Protodesign atelier, in Bairro Alto, then in Rua dos Douradores and 2001 moved to a municipal sculpture studio in Olivais, under a protocol with the Municipality of Lisbon, until 2009. Afterwards, after signing a protocol with Central de Cervejas, a private company, experimenta moved to the Palácio Quintela, in Rua do Alecrim, and then to the Convento da Trindade – having developed a vigorous cultural programme in both sites, in the Chiado area.
Since 2014, experimenta is renting their own office in Rua da Trindade 1, in central Lisbon, also in the Chiado district.
Today, experimenta continues to promote a set of initiatives strongly connected to design, culture, economy, sustainability and social cohesion with an explorative and interdisciplinary approach, as well as national and international collaborations.
