The UK Pavilion focused on UK innovations and discoveries that changed the way we live our lives, transforming communities (steam locomotion), people (electromagnetic radiation), the world (turbojet engine), and everything (www). It asked visitors to imagine a new future, fuelled by the properties of the advanced material, graphene, discovered by Nobel Prize winning UK scientists at Manchester University.
The UK pavilion was a multi-sensory experience involving film, technology, sound and computer generated animation.
With the Expo theme of “Future Energy”, the UK design explored the origins of energy and begins with the birth of the universe, taking visitors on the journey of energy from the sun through to landscape, climate and human civilisation, culminating in a 360º computer generated universal landscape with an illuminated structure at its centre, inspired by human ingenuity.
UK pavilion at Expo 2017 Astana
UK Pavilion designer, Asif Khan, stated that “the universe was formed 13.8 billion years ago. At that moment all energy and matter was in the same place at the same time. The idea that everything, including life on earth, is comprised of this archaic energy is fascinating to me. I wanted to find a way to express this relationship to our visitors and explore how energy is being continually harnessed and balanced around us.”
UK pavilion at Expo 2017 Astana
Completing a world class UK creative team is renowned musician Brian Eno, who composed an original soundscape for the Pavilion, and Professor of Astrophysics Catherine Heymans, from the University of Edinburgh, who developed the scientific context.
