Osaka World Expo 2025
Participant and Presenter
Artwork by Akito Okunaka, Called INTER-WORLD/Cocooner: Apparent motion of celestial bodies at the Osaka Expo 2025
I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Osaka for a cultural exchange, where I had the chance to visit the World Expo!
The Singapore Pavilion at Osaka World Expo 2025
Osaka Expo 2025
We started the trip by visiting the World Expo, where we were invited inside the Singapore Pavilion to experience its architecture, design, and storytelling. The Singapore Pavilion stood out to me in particular—its blend of design, narrative, and atmosphere showed how culture and identity can be communicated through space in a way that feels both immersive and personal. Seeing these ideas translated into form gave me a deeper appreciation for exhibition-making on a global stage and sparked new curiosity about how nations craft stories through built environments.
Osaka Metropolitan University
With our experience from the Osaka Expo, we headed to Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) to present to the students about the art scene in Singapore. I shared about the symbiotic relationship between Singapore’s mega-art events and its independent art organisations, how they shape, support, and influence each other. (See my presentation here!)
Me presenting to the students and lecturers at OMU
Exchange
After that, we listened to the OMU students present their visions for the future of the World Expo. Bringing together our understanding of Singapore’s cultural ecosystem with their local knowledge of Japan’s, we exchanged ideas about what Expos could become—their possibilities, their purposes, and how they might evolve in response to changing cultural landscapes.
The students and lecturers from OMU and LASALLE!
Then I spoke at a student panel
When I came back to school, I had the chance to share my reflections during a session that also featured speakers from the Singapore Tourism Board, Kingsmen Creatives Ltd, and DP Architects, who worked on the Singapore Pavilion. Hearing how they translated ideas into form, how storytelling, design, and national identity can be expressed through space, gave me an entirely new appreciation of what goes into creating a pavilion. View my presentation here!
The student panel where we shared our observations and experiences from the exchange.