Dubai has been reimagined yet again. This time, enormous origami sculptures tower high over the city’s most famous landmarks — including Burj Khalifa, Palm Jumeirah, Burj Al Arab and more — giving its celebrated skyline a run for its money.
The scenes are part of a new video, which has gone viral in the UAE, even being reposted by Dubai Tourism. The video’s creator, 3D artist Rohith Jagadisha, says he is shocked by the response.
“I never expected this at all,” says Jagadisha. “People really love it. But actually, this was something I did just for my daughter.”
The Indian artist began working on the video two months ago, as a way of fulfilling a promise he made to his daughter Vipanchi, 7, during the height of the pandemic.
“My daughter and I used to go to Pearl Beach every day, sit there and be mesmerised by the Dubai skyline, just enjoying the view.” Like her parents, who are both artists, Vipanchi has always been creative; and has enjoyed making origami for years.
“I was just showing my daughter some small origami creations one day, and she said, ‘Dubai has so many huge buildings, what if I created a huge origami here?’”
It was a typically creative idea from the young girl, who has always had an artistic streak — she's even painted the walls of their home. “I thought, ‘Oh, OK, that’s interesting,” Jagadisha says.
The artist, 39, promised to turn her vision into a reality one day, but struggled to find the time to do it. However, earlier this year, after working in Dubai for 13 years, he and his family moved back to Karnataka in India.
“At first, I was busy with some freelance projects, but then I had a break and my daughter started asking, ‘What happened? You promised me you’d show me something’,” he says with a laugh. “So I started working on it for her. I did it just for the sake of her. All for her.”
Although Jagadisha graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts, in the 2000s, as the 3D industry took off, he decided to retrain in new technologies. “At the time, my main skill was sculptures and painting, but I moved to this field because just doing painting is very hard.”
Today, he works as a 3D generalist, specialising in a wide array of fields. “In the 3D industry, there are a lot of departments — there’s a modelling department, animation, lighting, compositing and so on. As a generalist, you have to know all of them.”
To produce the video, Jagadisha created 3D origami figures and imposed them over footage of different locations across Dubai: Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai Frame, Burj Al Arab, Dubai Marina, Museum of the Future, Sheikh Zayed Road, Business Bay, Burj Khalifa and more.
After working on the project for a month, full-time, he unveiled his project, much to his daughter’s delight.
“I’d completely created Dubai in 3D in the past, and used to always take her with me to all these places, so she knew them very well,” he says. “She was amazed,” he recalls. And she was not the only one.
Jagadisha also shared his creation with the world at large, and it has since gone viral on Facebook, Instagram and even LinkedIn.
Overwhelmed by the response, he says he is looking forward to his next project. “I’m definitely going to do more creative things like this. I’ll come up with some new ideas.”
THE%20HOLDOVERS
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The biog
Hobby: Playing piano and drawing patterns
Best book: Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
Food of choice: Sushi
Favourite colour: Orange
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Places to go for free coffee
- Cherish Cafe Dubai, Dubai Investment Park, are giving away free coffees all day.
- La Terrace, Four Points by Sheraton Bur Dubai, are serving their first 50 guests one coffee and four bite-sized cakes
- Wild & The Moon will be giving away a free espresso with every purchase on International Coffee Day
- Orange Wheels welcome parents are to sit, relax and enjoy goodies at ‘Café O’ along with a free coffee
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
More on Quran memorisation:
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Pakhtoons 137-6 (10 ov)
Fletcher 68 not out; Cutting 2-14
Sindhis 129-8 (10 ov)
Perera 47; Sohail 2-18
Founders: Ines Mena, Claudia Ribas, Simona Agolini, Nourhan Hassan and Therese Hundt
Date started: January 2017, app launched November 2017
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Private/Retail/Leisure
Number of Employees: 18 employees, including full-time and flexible workers
Funding stage and size: Seed round completed Q4 2019 - $1m raised
Funders: Oman Technology Fund, 500 Startups, Vision Ventures, Seedstars, Mindshift Capital, Delta Partners Ventures, with support from the OQAL Angel Investor Network and UAE Business Angels
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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BRIEF SCORES:
Toss: Nepal, chose to field
UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23
Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17
Result: UAE won by 21 runs
Series: UAE lead 1-0
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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How much of your income do you need to save?
The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.
In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)
Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.
'Saand Ki Aankh'
Produced by: Reliance Entertainment with Chalk and Cheese Films
Director: Tushar Hiranandani
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Bhumi Pednekar, Prakash Jha, Vineet Singh
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
