Inside Expo

In the past few years, the team behind Expo 2020 Dubai gave “mobility” a lot of thought. After all, it is one of Expo’s three main themes: Mobility, Sustainability and Opportunity. 

 

This episode, the first in a two-part series on how Expo 2020 Dubai redefines mobility, is a tour inside Alif, the Mobility Pavilion. And who better to guide us inside Alif than Marjan Faraidooni, Chief Experience Officer at Expo 2020 Dubai and the driving force behind Alif, and Erik van der Schaft, Alif’s director. 

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

The UK pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai centres around the concept of a collective message to space. To do this, the UK pavilion is using an artificial intelligence software that actually thinks of and writes out poems. This power of connecting minds from around the globe, to input diverse data points and create a pattern of some kind, is at the root of artificial intelligence. This is what makes a melting pot like Expo 2020 Dubai an ideal incubator to showcase and experiment with AI.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

Surreal is a bedazzling water feature at the centre of Expo 2020 Dubai. As one of the highlight attractions on the Expo grounds, Surreal brings together an intricate system of engineering with an ambitious architectural design and beautiful musical compositions in one piece. And it continues to attract, amaze and entertain visitors every day.

 

In the final part of our three-part series exploring architecture at Expo, we're diving deep into how Surreal came to be and the splash it created with Expo visitors.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

The journey of Al Wasl, the beating heart of Expo, lasted five years — from conception all the way to the moment it was crowned. At 67.5 meters tall and 130-meters wide, it’s the world's largest 360-degree projection surface. But what makes Al Wasl so distinct is that it isn’t just a dome. It’s also a plaza. A place of gathering. In Arabic, Al Wasl means connection. It links all of Expo’s three thematic districts: sustainability, mobility and opportunity. In part two of our three-part series exploring architecture at Expo, we’ll hear from the masterminds that brought Al Wasl to life.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

How do you design the right entrance into the city of the future - and Expo? 

Imagine that you are walking through an enormous gate made of fine lines of structure. It is as if you are walking through a 3D Mashrabiya… immersed in its light, shade and airflow aesthetics. And as you walk away, the portal transfers you into a courtyard filled with trees. 

This is the main entrance to Expo 2020 Dubai. In part one of our three-part series exploring architecture at Expo, we will come closer to the three ethereal entry portals of Expo 2020 Dubai and how they were brought to life.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

What is it that makes our prehistoric origins so fascinating to us? Why do we go to such great lengths to visit and document the ancient skeletal remains of an ancestral human species? And what is the significance of curating this moment in our past at Expo 2020 Dubai? Travel into the past through the Ethiopian and Serbian pavilions as they showcase the importance of prehistoric times.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

Throughout history, different cultures have informed each other in ways that create new forms of communication, of expression, of existence. Everything from the Mexican taco to contemporary pop music is the result of cultural fusion and, in a way, it feels like the potential for these combos is endless. 

 

So what happens when you bring 192 unique countries together in the same place? Across pavilions at Expo, neighboring hosts talk to each other. They are never neighbors around the world. At Expo 2020 Dubai, they’re neighbors here. 

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

On the night of September 30th, 2021, people everywhere watched as the first World Expo in the region commemorated a historic milestone as Expo 2020 Dubai was officially declared open. 

 

At the heart of the Opening Ceremony is a young girl who becomes the protagonist in this inaugural moment of Expo 2020 Dubai. She presents the uplifting, never-stopping curiosity of Dubai. Through this narrative that unfolds inside the beating heart of the site, Al Wasl Plaza, she guides us to a picture perfect metaphor of what our world could be. As this Expo takes place in real time, we look back at the creative process that made this opening ceremony so magical.

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

Sofia is a grade 10 student who loves to bike. She is also the innovator behind Darraja, a wearable solution that increases bikers’ safety. Darraja is on display along with 297 other innovations at the ground floor of Terra - the Sustainability Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. Those innovations were designed and implemented by students within the Young Innovators Initiative, part of the Expo School Programme. 

In this episode, we will see Expo 2020 Dubai from the eyes of the young ones and how they got to be key-players, stakeholders and shapers of this world event. 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.

So much of Expo’s public realm was designed to inspire a sense of child-like wonder, from the biggest architectural marvel to the smallest tile on the ground. The Expo is full of Easter eggs! These small things that help give this material space a character. A soul. In today’s episode, we go on an Easter egg hunt as we see, hear, smell, touch, and feel all the details that make Expo 2020 Dubai the lived-in city that it is. What stories do the small things tell, and how do they make this place a home?

 

This podcast is by Expo 2020 Dubai and produced by Kerning Cultures Network.