Project Details
The Abrahamic Family House encompasses a mosque, a church, a synagogue, and a Forum where visitors are invited to participate in a unique environment, including guided tours, exhibitions, and opportunities to foster knowledge exchange.
Squint/Opera produced immersive media for three dynamic and engaging installations at this ambitious cultural site.
Client
Miral and Image Nation
Location
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Sector
Architecture & Built Environment, Museums & Attractions
Collaborators
Event Communications, Coda to Coda
The Brief
Design immersive media for three installations at AFH, exploring Faith, Word, Light and Place in the context of the three Abrahamic religions.
Our Response
Our media looks, in turn, at journeys of faith through everyday lives, the symbolism of light, the importance of the word, and the coming together of faith communities in places of worship. They each express elements of common humanity across three distinct faiths. They are deeply underpinned by the core messages of peaceful coexistence, mutual understanding, empathy, and acceptance promoted by the Abrahamic Family House.
The first installation, ‘Faith’, comprises 11 dynamic, petal-shaped AV screens that showcase different life events in the religious journeys of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
The installation utilises specially commissioned films, which offer insight into each faith’s various rites and rituals, from coming-of-age ceremonies to festivals and pilgrimages. The footage is carefully choreographed across the 11 petal-shaped screens to encourage viewers to move around the space and explore different perspectives of the various faith journeys.
These visual elements incorporate particle effects which intersperse with the rites and ritual footage; symbolising the spiritual journey of religious individuals. They begin in singularities and then variously come together in groups to represent celebration and pilgrimage.
The second installation, ‘Word,’ focuses on the three respective holy texts of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The installation showcases nine extracts from the Quran, Bible and Torah.
The final installation, ‘Place’, explores the relationship between religious spaces and faith. Two immersive LED screens, incorporated into a plinth and the ceiling, depict different prayer environments, like the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.
The installation begins with wide shots of religious spaces, such as mosques and churches, captured through drone footage. It then gradually moves to more domestic interiors as a path through each religious journey. This macro-to-micro narrative highlights how worship takes many forms, from collective to deeply personal, private prayer.
Spirit and Light: Squint produced a unique soundscape for an additional installation. In close collaboration with Coda to Coda, we produced unique recordings of religious leaders reading from their respective holy texts. This installation explores the important motif of light and symbolism in religion and worship.
Additionally, the project utilised VR technology, Squint’s Virtual Twin, to create a 360-degree, 3D view of the actual exhibition space in pre-production, which allowed the team to preview how the different edits and effects would appear in the space and in real-time.
Squint/Opera obtained exclusive filming privileges in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi. The team filmed at night and dawn in the iconic mosque. They had the opportunity to complete filming in the Ablution rooms, on the prayer carpets in the prayer rooms and in the central courtyard before worship began. This enabled us to create film and visuals representing this breathtaking space like never before. It was truly a privilege to film at this sacred and beautiful site.
Squint/Opera has been enormously privileged to have collaborated on a religious site of such high importance to the cultural and religious world.
