Expo 2020 Dubai includes a variety of activities, but one of the most distinctive is an immersive art installation that is attracting everyone’s attention.
Dodecalis Luminarium, a new project at Festival Garden, is a big inflatable structure with three domes on the outside and an incandescent colorful maze on the interior.
The design project has already traveled to 43 countries, where visitors are entertained by dodecahedron-inspired plastic forms that resemble stars and an octopus, which is a luminarium, a structure specifically created to showcase light and color. The 12-sided Platonic solid, named after the dodecahedron, is built on the pentagon, and the many colours seen on the interior are formed by the light coming through the plastic from the outside, which changes depending on the time of day and weather.
It’s a set of tunnels and rooms created by Alan Parkinson of the UK arts organization Architects of Air, with distinct portions reflecting off different light shows, ranging from laser-green patterns on the domed ceiling to deep, dramatic reds.
“I can say that its outside is deceptive,” Alan Parkinson said of the installation. “Visitors will often come out remarking that it appears so much bigger inside and that they could never have anticipated how bright the colours are.”
While the colourful façade and labyrinthine interior have appealed to people of all ages, the installation at Expo 2020 Dubai will only hold 56 people at a time. The Dodecal’s entrance