AT OSAKA’S EXPO 2025 WORLD’S FAIR, TWO RELATED EXHIBITIONS SHOWCASE POWERFUL ART MADE BY DISABLED ARTISTS

OSAKA’S BiG-i, TOKYO’S bunkamura, AND OTHER SPONSORS COLLABORATE TO PRESENT WORKS MADE BY SELF-TAUGHT ARTISTS ASSOCIATED WITH SOME INNOVATIVE ART WORKSHOPS

Published on June 3, 2025

by Edward M. Gómez

OSAKA, JAPAN — Expo 2025, the world’s fair that opened on April 13 of this year on an artificial island situated in the bay of this large commercial and port city in south/southwestern Japan, has quickly become a big success. The huge event features 188 pavilions, including those of 152 participating countries; various private companies, regions, and organizations; and the Japanese government.

Over on the west side of the expo’s vast terrain, a venue called “Gallery West” features a constantly changing roster of temporary exhibitions.

This past weekend, I visited its latest offerings, two related exhibitions titled “Spread Our Common Sense” and “About Me Special,” as they were being set up. They will be on view from Monday, June 2, through Wednesday, June 4.

A banner announcing “Spread Our Common Sense,” one of two exhibitions that are being presented at Expo 2025’s Gallery West. All photos by Edward M. Gómez

The first of these presentations has been organized by the International Communication Center for Person with Disabilities, BiG-i, an institution based in Osaka that offers year-round cultural programs for disabled people and workshops for specialists who work with them; the Japan Arts Council; and Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, a national-government entity. Tokyo’s Bunkamura arts center and Osaka’s prefectural government also cooperated in the production of “Spread Our Common Sense.” BiG-i and Bunkamura are the primary producers of “About Me Special.”

“Spread Our Common Sense” reprises an exhibition of artworks made by self-taught artists who took part in a national/international competition for disabled people who create their art on their own or who regularly take part in art-making studios or workshops sponsored by special institutions for the disabled. That original exhibition, which was shown at Bunkamura’s gallery in Tokyo in the late summer of 2024, featured the prize-winning artworks from the competition that had been sponsored by BiG-i and Bunkamura. Now, at the world’s fair in Osaka, the works on view may be seen in the context of the expo’s idealistic themes.

One of the shuttle buses serving visitors to the fair, decorated with the expo’s signature graphics and logo.

The big event’s overall theme, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” is reflected in the architectural design and functions of many of the fair’s national pavilions, which feature sustainable uses of building materials and innovative uses of electric power, lighting, and other design details. The expo’s subthemes include “Saving Lives,” “Empowering Lives,” and “Connecting Lives.”

The Japanese artist and graphic designer Hiroaki Nakatsugawa served as the curator of the two related exhibitions, “Spread Our Common Sense” and “About Me Special.” In Japan, he has worked closely with numerous institutions whose programs include art-making studios and workshops for disabled people.

“About Me Special” has been curated by Hiroaki Nakatsugawa, a Japanese artist and graphic designer who has long worked closely with Japanese social-welfare institutions for the disabled whose programs include art-making studios or workshops. For this exhibition, Nakatsugawa has selected works made by self-taught artists who are associated with the art-making programs at eight such institutions. Each artist has developed art-making techniques and modes of expression that are inventive and deeply personal.

The institutions whose artists’ works are on display in “About Me Special” include Tomute no Mori Studio BREMEN in Hokkaido; Art de Vivre in Kanagawa Prefecture; Kibo no Sono in Mie Prefecture; Yamanami Kobo in Shiga Prefecture; Katayama Kobo in Hyogo Prefecture; Smile in Aichi Prefecture; Kobo Maru in Fukuoka Prefecture; and Shitennoji Yawaragien in Osaka

A detail from an abstract drawing by the self-taught artist Aika Matsui appears on the cover of the catalogue that accompanies the “About Me Special” exhibition. It has been published in Japanese and English editions.

While setting up the two exhibitions, Nakatsugawa told me, “The works made by these self-taught artists are full of energy and original ideas. The fact that these creators are disabled people does not diminish the vitality of their artistic expressions or their creative spirit. What they produce can be just as fresh and intriguing as the works of artists who are formally trained and who are not affected by mental or physical disabilities.”

In the catalog of the “About Me Special” exhibition, Nakatsugawa writes, “Neither ‘art’ nor ‘welfare’ is solely for special people; they are essential for everyone to lead a humane life. Where these two overlap, an extraordinary form of ‘expression’ is born that we have never seen before.”

Referring to disabled people and to the special workshops in which some of them take part, Nakatsugawa adds, “In a place that appears to be the farthest from productivity and efficiency in modern society, or rather because of this very place, miraculous ‘expression’ exists.”

In the “Spread Our Common Sense” exhibition, Natsuki Miyamoto’s postcard-size drawings, in marker-pen ink, of traffic lights, from his “My Favorite Traffic Lights” series.

“This may seem strange,” he observes, suggesting that, if disabled people were to be seen more integrally as members of society, such a point of view regarding their art-making “could be perfectly natural.”

There are many remarkable discoveries to be made among the works on view in “Spread Our Common Sense” and “About Me Special.”

Kaichi Hayashi’s bold calligraphic work, “Fish,” depicts the written character for that word, radically transforming its appearance to create what appears to be a dinosaur.

In the former presentation, among other pieces, Natsuki Miyamoto’s postcard-size drawings, in marker-pen ink, of traffic lights (from his “My Favorite Traffic Lights” series) caught my eye. So did Kaichi Hayashi’s bold calligraphic work, “Fish,” depicting the written character for that word in a radically stylized manner that makes it look more like the silhouetted figure of a dinosaur. From Spain, Angelo Berroteran’s drawing “Mayan Calendar,” made with inks on paper, infuses the exhibition with a shot of graffiti-like energy.

From Spain, Angelo Berroteran’s drawing “Mayan Calendar” is on display in the “Spread Our Common Sense” exhibition.

In the “About Me Special” exhibition, the artists Hina Endou and Souta Miyabayashi, both of whom are associated with Tomute no Mori Studio BREMEN in Hokkaido, in the far north of Japan, are showing works characterized by meticulous craftsmanship. Endou uses plastic modeling past to make dollhouse-size replicas of slices of toast, plates filled with fried rice, hot dogs, tiny slices of kiwi, and individual pieces of sashimi. Miyabayashi uses stickers from packages of prepared foods from supermarkets to craft unusually shaped, sculptural objects whose undulating surfaces resemble three-dimensional topographical maps.

Works made by artists associated with Tomute no Mori Studio BREMEN in Hokkaido, in the far north of Japan: above: Hina Endou’s dollhouse-size replicas of all sorts of food; below: sculptural forms created by Souta Miyabayashi using supermarket food-package stickers.

Also on view: From Art de Vivre in Kanagawa Prefecture, artist Manami Tsukamoto uses resin clay and other materials to create a world of small-scale figures in her “Constellation” series of colorfully costumed, fantasy female characters.

From Art de Vivre in Kanagawa Prefecture, artist Manami Tsukamoto’s world of small-scale, colorful female characters.

From Kibo no Sono in Mie Prefecture, an institution whose name means “Garden of Hope,” the painter Kenji Kawakami makes expressionist compositions featuring big-eyed figures and rollicking rhythms. From Yamanami Kobo in Shiga Prefecture, Chiaki Shimizu’s paintings on paper blast into the exhibition’s gallery with the furious energy of thickets of boldly colored, string brushstrokes that seem to articulate and obscure their subjects — are they lumbering human forms? — at the same time.

In the “About Me Special” exhibition, expressionistic-feeling paintings by the artist Kenji Kawakami, who is associated with Kibo no Sono in Mie Prefecture, an institution whose name means “Garden of Hope.”

From Katayama Kobo in Hyogo Prefecture, which is near Osaka, comes a group of paintings made by Takashi Fukada, who cannot use his hands to hold a brush. Instead, he uses a custom-designed headpiece from which a long metal arm extends, with a brush attached to it; by moving his head, he places brushstrokes on his canvas. Among Fukada’s paintings on view in “About Me Special,” “Self-portrait in the Deep Sea” depicts the artist as an underwater creature, complete with his unique painter’s headgear, which, in this image, resembles a guide light.

Also on view in “About Me Special,” Takashi Fukada’s painting “Self-portrait in the Deep Sea,” which depicts the artist as an underwater creature, complete with his unique painter’s headgear. Here, it resembles a guide light.

Several artists who are affected by physical disabilities and are all associated with Shitennoji Yawaragien in Osaka have works on view in “About Me Special.” As Hajime Kimura, a therapist and senior administrator at this institution told me, “Since most of these artists spend much of their time in wheelchairs or in lying-down positions, we have built specially angled tables or other facilities for them so that they may draw or make paintings using their bodies’ limited mobility.”

Although, perhaps understandably, such art-makers’ creations are characterized by simple gestural marks, these abstract works exude a minimalist air. An example may be found in Aika Matsui’s drawing made with an oil-based on paper, which is reproduced on the cover of the “About Me Special” exhibition’s catalogue (which has been published in Japanese and English versions).

From Yamanami Kobo in Shiga Prefecture, Chiaki Shimizu’s paintings on paper.

In the catalogue, curator Nakatsugawa writes, “In recent years, there has been a growing interest in artistic activities by persons with disabilities, and high-quality works are now being presented to wider audiences in exhibitions and public competitions. Some [of their] works are being utilized in commercial design, and the methods for conveying the appeal of their creations to society are becoming increasingly diverse.”

Nakatsugawa adds, “What do people gain from expressing themselves? For what purpose and reason do they express themselves? What do creative activities mean to the person? Who created it, how, and why? Living and expressing are deeply connected.”