Neon City Light Installation
A three-storey kinetic light show of the Chinese zodiac by Jason Bruges Studio, at the heart of Chinatown.
At the centre of the Dubai Mall's Chinatown is Neon City, a three-storey, skylit atrium lined with glowing signage — and its animating centrepiece is a multidimensional light installation by Jason Bruges Studio, the London practice known for work at the intersection of art, technology and architecture. The piece runs across LED screens depicting the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, choreographed into a shifting light show that turns the atrium into a performance rather than a backdrop.
It's the moment in Chinatown where the design tips fully from décor into contemporary media art. Jason Bruges Studio's practice is built on kinetic and responsive installations that behave more like living systems than static signs, and here that sensibility gives Neon City a rhythm — a reason to stop, look up and watch rather than pass through. It has become one of the most photographed and social-media-shared features of the whole district.
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Come in the evening and give it a few minutes rather than a single photo — it's a timed light sequence, so what you see shifts. Stand on the lower level and look up through the three-storey atrium for the full effect of the zodiac screens against the skylight. It sits along the Neon City stretch of Chinatown, on the first floor of the mall.
How to find it
Within Chinatown on the first floor of The Dubai Mall — the three-storey skylit atrium along the Neon City section. Look up: the zodiac LED screens run the height of the space.
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