From 31 May 2025, an exhibition by Joanna Hawrot entitled “Wearable Art – Unseen Threads” will be presented at the prestigious Daimaru Shinsaibashi department store in Osaka. This spectacular installation spreading across eight floors of the gallery will encompass artistic textiles by Joanna Hawrot, sculptures by Angelika Markul, as well as photographs and videos by Zuza Krajewska. Drawing inspiration from the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Wojciech Sadley, and Angelika Markul, Hawrot combines Polish tapestry tradition with Japanese aesthetics, thus creating an intercultural narrative on identity and visibility.

The project is part of a cultural programme accompanying Polish participation in EXPO 2025 organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute under the slogan “PO!land.” Polish Investment and Trade Agency is responsible for Poland’s entire participation in EXPO.

Stories of women inscribed in fabric – Joanna Hawrot’s works in the centre of Osaka

At the prestigious Daimaru Shinsaibashi department store, one of the historical symbols of the Kansai region, an exhibition of Joanna Hawrot – a project at the borderline of fashion, art, and narrative about contemporary identity – will be presented. It will feature original artefacts  
and tapestries alluding to the works of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Wojciech Sadley, and Angelika Markul. The project draws on the legacy of the Polish School of Textile Art, whose creators demonstrated that textiles can be just as expressive as painting or sculpture. 

The artist invited 12 women from Poland and Japan to reflect their personal histories in her creations. The result is twelve unique outfits inspired by jūnihitoe (literally “twelve layers”) – a traditional court attire from the Heian period. Elderly, transsexual, and socially excluded persons, rarely represented in the world of fashion, gain space for self-expression and a symbolic opportunity to take the floor. Concealed in a fabric, personal experiences of participants form a polyphonic narrative on what is visible and what is hidden – both in fashion and in culture. A photographer Zuza Krajewska collects a photographic record of these experiences. In a series of portraits made in the streets of Osaka, fashion is confronted with the context of everyday life, thus asking a question about visibility in today’s culture.

The “Wearable Art – Unseen Threads” installation comprising Joanna Hawrot’s fashion objects and artistic textiles, Angelika Markul’s sculptures, as well as Zuza Krajewska’s multimedia including photos and videos, will occupy the space of eight floors of prestigious Daimaru Shinsaibashi department store. A place of particular significance due to its decades-long tradition of creating and selling kimonos, and being one of the historical symbols of the Kansai region.

From 31 May to 24 June 2025, an installation “Joanna Hawrot. Wearable Art – Unseen Threads” will be presented at DAIMARU Shinsaibashi department in Osaka. 

Artist: Joanna Hawrot, Curatorial team: Paweł Pachciarek, Joanna Hawrot, Fabric designs, objects: Joanna Hawrot, Photographs/Videos: Zuza Krajewska, Sculpture: Angelika Markul, Exhibition Architecture: Ania Witko, Content consultations: Marcin Różyc (CMWŁ), Partner: Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, Polish Investment and Trade Agency, Cooperation: DAIMARU Shinsaibashi

Artistic fabric by Joanna Hawrot, photo: Zuza Krajewska

PO!land – AMI cultural programme accompanying the EXPO 2025 World Exhibition

The World Exposition EXPO 2025, hosted by Japan for the third time, was inaugurated on 13 April in Osaka. The event is accompanied by a unique cultural programme under the slogan Po!land ポ！ランド, organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The programme will go beyond the space of national pavilions to make its mark at the very heart of the city.

The slogan of the cultural programme – Po!land ポ！ランド – is inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeia “Po!”, used to express epiphany and pleasant surprise. This joyful “Po!” also alludes to polonium – a chemical element discovered by Maria Skłodowska-Curie and symbolising innovativeness, science, and transgressing borders. Juxtaposed with “ランド” (rando), borrowed from the English “land”, Po!land becomes a space for exchanging ideas, meeting of cultures, and mutual inspirations. 

The official opening of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute cultural programme to accompany the EXPO 2025 World Exposition will take place on 20 June 2025 during the inauguration of an installation by Yuriko Sasaoki: Polonia x Skłodowska-Curie’s Magic Lab – The Power of Migration —.”

Visual arts as part of the programme accompanying EXPO 2025

From 30 March, the exhibition “Nohara no ue de – On the field” is already on display in the city of Ibaraki. This is the first edition of the SOU #15 project, in which Japanese curators invited Polish artists Edyta Hul and Róża Litwa to collaborate. Large-format prints of the artists’ works, reaching a height of 2.5 metres, will fill the space of the train station, becoming an unusual element of the everyday landscape. The second edition of the project will begin on 28 June – works of female artists will be presented in the space of the Fukushi Bunka Kaikan (Community Cultural Centre) building, which has been decommissioned and adapted as a temporary art gallery.

In June, a project of one of the most interesting Japanese artists of the young generation – Yuriko Sasaoki – will be presented at the Osaka City Central Public Hall. An installation “Polonia x Skłodowska-Curie’s Magic Lab. The Power of Migration —”, prepared in collaboration with Polish artists Daniel Koniusz and Tomasz Koszewnik, retells the story of Maria Skłodowska-Curie – not as a scientific icon, but as a migrant, mother, social activist, and researcher whose life and work extended beyond the boundaries of laboratories. By drawing from her own experiences and transcultural practice, Yuriko Sasaoka reveals a personal cost of scientific discoveries in her work. A double meaning of “Polonia” – a migrant community and an element discovered by Skłodowska-Curie – becomes a metaphor of migrations of ideas and identities. 

The Po!land programme of events is organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the programme of promoting Polish culture accompanying Poland’s participation in the EXPO 2025 World Exhibition organised by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency.