By Muhammad Rafiq
DUBAI: Brazil opened its 4,000 sq.m pavilion at the Expo 2020 Dubai, weaving into its architectural backbone a stunning presentation of the Latin American country’s biodiversity. The Vice-President Hamilton Mourão was present, alongside with other authorities.
“At a time of concern over environmental degradation and climate change, we wanted to weave in the message around our relentless efforts to conserve nature and protect the environment to our core propositions on culture, food, trade, travel and tourism and investments,” said Elias Martins, Commissioner-General for Brazil at Expo 2020 Dubai.
The Brazil pavilion located in the Sustainability District,is a bold and daring architectural icon, as it blends engineering and aesthetics in a fine balance to provide an immersive experience to visitors.
It uses 125 giant projectors to project video images of Brazilian forests, rivers, urban centres, food and culture on translucent membranes in the pavilion’s interiors. Water and nature are prominent themes across the pavilion made of natural materials, bringing the experience of Brazil´s diverse biomes to Dubai. In order to augment and make the Brazilian water experience immersive and authentic, the pavilion has a walkable shallow water blade occupying across half of its area.
“Expo 2020 Dubai will offer Brazil the opportunity to cement bilateral relations with a host of countries with which the country has trade and commercial relations. It is also significant that the Expo is taking place in the UAE, one of the biggest trade partners of Brazil for over a decade,” highlighted Elias Martins.
On the cultural front, the Latin American nation has a historic Arab connection – it has the largest Arab diaspora of 5 million outside the Middle East.
“The next six months at the Expo will be very hectic for us as we roll out activities that will promote Brazil’s biodiversity, culture, tourism potential, cuisine and investment opportunities in one of the world’s leading sustainable countries,” said the Pavilion Director, Raphael Nascimento.
He said Brazil has a long line-up of activities at the Expo 2020 Dubai, which will seek to highlight the different facades of the country to a large global audience. “The Expo 2020 with a participation of 192 countries is a global platform of diversity, yet holding hands unitedly for the world’s prosperity and happiness, and Brazil is geared up to contribute its share to advance the cause of ` Connecting Minds and Creating Future,’ Raphael Nascimento added.
