teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi is set to open in the Saadiyat Cultural District, Abu Dhabi, on April 18, 2025. This announcement was made by the Department of Culture and Tourism—Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), Miral, and the art collective teamLab.
The 17,000-square-meter space will offer an immersive, multi-sensory art experience operated by Miral Experiences, a subsidiary of Miral. The experience will feature large, interactive exhibits that invite visitors to explore and engage with the artwork using their senses. These exhibits will stimulate sight, sound, and touch, encouraging people to think and feel differently about the world around them. Since the artworks are shaped by the environment, no two visits will be the same, offering a unique experience each time. The art will blend elements of science, technology, and creativity, where the environment itself plays an important role in creating and evolving the artwork.
The exhibits at teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi are part of teamLab’s “Environmental Phenomena” concept. This idea comes from years of experimentation, where the team aimed to create artwork that does not exist independently but is formed and maintained by its environment. The space where the art is displayed plays a key role in allowing the artwork to come to life. The design of the building, created by teamLab Architects and Abu Dhabi-based MZ Architects, will help provide the right environment for the art to evolve and change over time.
Toshiyuki Inoko, the founder of teamLab, explains that the art in this space will not exist like typical objects, such as a rock. Unlike things made by humans, which have a stable form, the artwork here will depend on the environment to exist. This means elements like air, water, and light can change and become part of the artwork. The experience challenges the way people think about existence, where something may remain even if it is broken apart, as long as its environment is maintained.
Visitors will be able to interact with and explore a variety of exhibits. For example, Massless Suns and Dark Suns is an exhibit where spheres of light and darkness seem to be both solid and intangible at the same time. Touching these spheres causes them to glow and trigger a ripple effect through nearby spheres. This artwork does not exist on its own but is created by the environment and the visitor’s interaction with it.
Another exhibit, Levitation Void, introduces a hovering, levitating void in the middle of the space. This floating void appears to rise on its own, unaffected by gravity, and can move when touched. However, it slowly rises back up, showing that it is part of a continuous, self-sustaining process.
In other exhibits, lights blink in different colors and rhythms. When visitors touch them, the blinking patterns change, creating a new order between the dots. The movement of people in the space also affects the artwork, showing how everything is connected.
Visitors will also experience the movement of birds in Flock of Birds, where hundreds of thousands of birds appear to move together as a single, powerful entity. This artwork reflects the idea of space and time as interconnected, where the birds exist separately but also as part of a larger ecosystem.
Finally, a water garden filled with glowing ovoids will invite visitors to touch the shapes, which respond with light and sound. The exhibit creates a chain reaction that spreads through the garden. There is also a space that mimics the changing of water levels over time, where guests can walk through and interact with the environment.
teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi will offer visitors an exciting and constantly evolving experience that blends art, technology, and science in a way that challenges traditional ideas of what art can be.
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