Alif the Mobility Exhibition Experience

In a bold and brilliantly articulated cinematic style, Expo 2020 Dubai’s Mobility Pavilion draws one into an immersive journey through time, bringing the legacy and future of the UAE to light in a manner so life-like, you can almost touch it. The brainchild of the Expo team and London-based exhibition designers MET Studio, and with the support of with New Zealand’s Wētā Workshop, LA-based visual development studio Magnopus and global cultural consultancy Barker Langham the inspirational showcase in staged in three visually compelling acts.

“The intention was to emotionally link the past with the present and future while providing an informative and engaging experience,” explains Peter Karn, Creative Director of MET Studio. “Working with Wētā Workshop and Magnopus allowed us to go all out when it came to generating an connection with the inspirational theme of the exhibition.”

Visitors are led into a dark circular room where a dramatically lit, hyper-realistic effigy of a young Bedouin girl reaching for the sky holds court. The lights dim and an audio-scape of 1,000 years of transportation – from footsteps to spaceships – sets the tone. As an iridescent butterfly lands of the girl’s finger, the roof, a constellation of glittering LED lights appears to close in. In reality, we are standing in the world’s largest elevator (the 9m circular platform has a capacity of 180 people) and ascending to the top of the pavilion, where Act One unfolds.

One of the life-like statues of the three Arabic scholars. In the background: a 55m long bas-relief depicting physical transportation innovations since the beginning of humankind.

Nine-metre tall statues of Ibn Majid, Ibn Battuta and Al-Bakri, the three Arabic scholars of ancient navigation are seen surrounding a fully animated cartographer’s table that tells stories of olden travel. The life-like glint in the statues’ eyes and the kind, near-human expressions are thanks to Wētā Workshop’s unique mapping tech that captured the physicality of a cast of present-day Arab men to help build the large-scale scholars. Representing the pearling history of the UAE, a glowing orb with a 360-degree internal projection that depicts the beginnings of the nation closes the curtain on this arc of the story.

The pearl with 360-degree internal projection of the UAE’s beginnings pays tribute to the nation’s pearling history and intrinsic connection to the sea.

A digitised interpretation of the humble beginnings of the UAE as we know it. This montage depicts how the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan brought the leaders of the individual Emirates together to form the federation.

A 12m-wide globe greets visitors in Act Two with a fully projected animation explaining the intricacies of moving people and goods around the planet daily. On the other side, the journey shifts to the digital world with a multi-layered, multi-screen 3D lattice structure lending concepts of pixels and A.I. a physical connotation.

Act Two starts with a visualisation of our physical and digital interconnectedness.

The multi-screen 3D lattice giving a sense of physicality to the digital world.

Act Two ends with the convergence of the physical and digital worlds marked by a larger-than-life statue of an astronaut floating in thin air. Visitors can project their faces onto the astronaut’s helmet, a beautiful metaphor for our limitless potential.

Act Two ends with a floating astronaut on whose helmet visitors can project their faces.

Imagining and creating future cities through a simulation game, three children are the heroes of the last act. Through focussed audio narration and large, digitally projected stories, this section visualises an interconnected future.

Past, present and the future come together for the exhibition’s closing montage.

Finally, the young Bedouin girl appears again; this time standing tall and touching a magical reflection of herself. This other-worldly mirror is envisioned as a translucent sculpture with a trail of iridescent butterflies raining from a glistening tunnel above. This is that high-octave, powerfully connected moment in time where past connects to the future.

“It is about the past and the future co-habiting,” explains Karn. “All of these ideas and people we have been introduced to are all connected to us, through history. Our memories and heritage are just as important as our future. The idea is for visitors to pause and reflect about the essence of progress, amongst all the high tech and glamour of the ‘new’.”

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