World Expo Osaka 2025
Nieuwe Instituut presents the cultural programme of the Dutch Pavilion at the 2025 World Expo at Osaka, Kansai, Japan. The curatorial team drew inspiration from two key historical examples: the Dutch magazine Avenue, which ran from 1965 to 2003, and the Netherlands Pavilion for the 1970 Osaka World Expo, designed by Jaap Bakema and Carel Weeber.
The cultural programme of Expo 2025 carries forward the approaches of Avenue's dynamic, cross-disciplinary storytelling, and the immersive, interconnected vision of the 1970 Expo. Themed Activating Common Ground, the programme forms a 'live magazine' composed of talk shows, performances, showcases, specials, inserts, reflections and travels, and is built on collaborations between creators and organisations based in the Netherlands and Japan. The cultural programme is developed by the Nieuwe Instituut, in collaboration with Vincent Schipper of Studio the Future.
The Specials form a common thread that runs through the programme: seven projects by the Dutch-based makers Introdans, affect lab, Arne Hendriks, HOH Architecten, Tomoko Mukaiyama, Benjamin Herman and Field Records, all in collaboration with Japanese makers. The results of these collaborations appear in the pavilion as Showcases: thematic presentations of works from the Specials, complemented by other Dutch projects that have not yet been seen in Japan. The themes and the different practices will be discussed in a series of Talkshows with Dutch and Japanese guests.
