FOUR WEEKS OF CREATIVE IMMERSION AT OSAKA ART & DESIGN 2025
Returning for its third edition, Osaka Art & Design transforms the city into an urban-scale showcase of creativity from May 28 to June 24, 2025. Expanding its footprint to around 60 venues, the event connects a rich network of art, design, and architecture across Umeda, Nakanoshima, Shinsaibashi, Namba, and the newly added Abeno district, turning Osaka into a walkable museum of contemporary culture. Visitors can encounter a broad range of artworks, design objects, and fashion pieces, with several works available for purchase across galleries, department stores, and public spaces.
Taking place alongside EXPO 2025 Osaka, OAD 2025 positions the city as a dynamic stage for global cultural dialogue. Under the theme ‘Overlaps —Where Passions Encounter,’ the program unites emerging and established talents from Japan and abroad through large-scale installations, exhibitions, and cross-disciplinary showcases. Highlights include a collaborative installation by Sayaka Miyata and Mirodi Hirota, spanning the north-to-south concourse of Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North and the windows of Hankyu Department Store, as well as a special presentation by fashion designer Joanna Hawrot, organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute of Poland.
Osaka Art & Design 2025 key visual | all images courtesy of Osaka Art & Design
YOKAI UNITY
Blending folklore with playful urban interventions, this installation reimagines yokai — traditional Japanese spirits — through a colorful, pop-inspired lens. Emerging unexpectedly from city gaps, the creatures animate Osaka’s streets with humor and mystery, while a sculptural form based on the Hokkai Jo-in mudra adds a contemplative layer of compassion and coexistence.
exhibition period: May 28 – June 10, 2025
location: Nankai Namba Station 2F Concourse
participating creators: Maki Takato
Yokai Unity by Maki Takato
HAWROT: WEARABLE ART – UNSEEN THREADS
Joanna Hawrot’s Unseen Threads exhibition explores womanhood through wearable art, blending Polish textile traditions with Japanese kimono culture. Presented alongside portraits by photographer Zuza Krajewska, the works spotlight Japanese and Polish women wearing Hawrot’s designs, weaving personal stories into a cross-cultural celebration of identity, diversity, and contemporary femininity.
exhibition period: May 31 – June 24, 2025
location: Daimaru Shinsaibashi
participating creators: Joanna Hawrot
HAWROT: Wearable Art – Unseen Threads by Joanna Hawrot | image © Zuza Krajewska
THE NEW MUSEUM OF WONDER: THE GENE OF CURIOSITY
Inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations and global textile motifs, artist Sayaka Miyata embroiders a poetic fusion of natural science and art. In collaboration with designer Midori Hirota, she unveils a large-scale installation across Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North, merging handcraft and AI to spark curiosity and evoke the atmosphere of a museum of wonder.
exhibition period: May 8 – June 23, 2025
location: Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North 1F Concourse
participating creators: Sayaka Miyata and Midori Hirota
AloJapan.com