installations, paintings, and playful sculptures that stand out at osaka art & design 2025

DESIGNBOOM EXPLORES OSAKA ART & DESIGN 2025

Interactive sculptures, wearable statements, and color-shifting creatures take center stage across Osaka‘s urban landscape. As part of Osaka Art & Design 2025, running until June 24, artists and creatives from Japan and abroad present an exciting variety of exhibitions, installations, and site-specific works throughout the city. During our visit, designboom explored various locations — from Takuya Kumagai’s playful capsule toy sculptures at W Osaka to Sayaka Miyata and Midori Hirota’s embroidered world of wonder in the Umeda Twin Towers concourse. Scroll down to discover the projects that caught our attention.

Osaka Art & Design highlights in 2025 | all images courtesy of Osaka Art & Design

A SCULPTURE YOU CAN PLAY WITH LIKE A GACHA-GACHA TOY

For his installation at the W Osaka hotel, Takuya Kumagai reimagines Japan’s iconic capsule toy machines as 3D-printed sculptures in the form of ‘Play Sculpture (Gacha Gacha machine: Type-Atlas).’ Guests can interact with the work just like they would with a real gacha machine — turning the dial, receiving a capsule, and discovering the miniature world inside. This sculptural playful experience introduces a layer of surprise to the design hotel lobby while referencing postwar artist Isamu Noguchi’s concept of forms made for both play and contemplation.

Takuya Kumagai – Play Sculpture (Gacha Gacha Machine:Type-Atlas)

AN EMBROIDERED MUSEUM OF BOTANICAL WONDER AND IMAGINATION

In a collaborative public installation across the windows of the Hankyu Umeda Main Store, Sayaka Miyata and Midori Hirota unveil ‘The New Museum of Wonder: The Gene of Curiosity.’ Influenced by the fantastical illustrations of Ernst Haeckel, the artists construct imaginary organisms that evolve through the fusion of embroidery and AI. As if stepping into a natural history museum of the future, viewers encounter textile specimens that radiate color, texture, and tactile curiosity.

Sayaka Miyata / Midori Hirota – The New Museum Of Wonder: The Gene Of Curiosity

WEARABLE STORIES OF WOMANHOOD ROOTED IN TRADITION

Inside Creative Center Osaka, Polish artist and designer Joanna Hawrot presents her latest collection ‘Unseen Threads,’ a cross-cultural collaboration merging Poland’s textile traditions with the form and symbolism of the Japanese kimono. With designs developed in partnership with Polish artists and portrayed through intimate photographs by Zuza Krajewska, the garments become visual poems, each one exploring female identity through fabric, drape, and gesture. In the Osaka context, these wearable artworks, exhibited at Daimaru Umeda, serve as quiet yet powerful cross-border dialogue.

Joanna Hawrot – Hawrot: Wearable Art – Unseen Threads

POPS OF YOKAI JOY HIDDEN ACROSS THE CITY

Humorous, otherworldly, and rooted in Japanese folklore, Maki Takato’s ‘YOKAI UNITY’ brings a cast of modern, 3d-scanned yokai creatures into the streets and shopfronts of Osaka. Often seen in the corners of buildings or glowing from inside old houses, Takato’s yokai are updated with contemporary expressions and textures, becoming vibrant symbols of life and memory. The installations suggest a new kind of landscape, one where the spirit world and daily routine coexist, reshaped by joy, absurdity, and the artist’s playful approach to traditional mythology.

EMERGING ART ENERGY FROM KYOTO TO OSAKA

CAPS (Contemporary Art Practice | Studio) presents a sweeping group exhibition featuring students from Kyoto University of the Arts’ Department of Contemporary Art. Spanning video, painting, craft, sculpture, and conceptual installation, the works fill the six floors of Seibu Umeda, formerly home to LOFT. Curated by the artist-run space Yamanaka Suplex, the show brings together a broad range of artistic voices and fresh ideas, highlighting the next generation of Japanese contemporary art.

Caps: Contemporary Art Practice | Studio

A RAINBOW-COLORED BIRD LANDS AT OSAKA STATION

Created by YAR and artist Kota Nakazono, ‘WATARIDORI’ is a luminous migratory bird glowing with rainbow hues, installed under the vaulted ceiling of Osaka Station’s atrium. Made from dichroic film and responsive lighting, the suspended sculpture shifts color as people move around it, referencing the birds’ ability to navigate by geomagnetism and starlight. It’s both a visual beacon and an emotional anchor, connecting natural phenomena with a sense of festivity and global motion.

YAR and Kota Nakazono – Wataridori

PAINTINGS WHERE ARCHITECTURE BECOMES EMOTION

For his first major solo exhibition in the Kansai region, painter Shotaro Sanada presents ‘New Landscape’ at the Hankyu Department Store Umeda Main Store. His works explore the vertical gravitas of nature and architecture, blending the flow of time with imagined forms that stretch between reality and fiction. Each painting becomes both a wall and a window, evoking cityscapes that feel both intimate and monumental.

HYPERREAL FOOD SAMPLES THAT LOOK GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT

At the Kintetsu Department Store Main Store Abeno Harukas, Iwasaki Co., Ltd. – a pioneer of Japanese food sample production since 1932 – presents the ‘New Food Sample Exhibition,’ showcasing a playful mix of hyper-realistic and imaginative replicas crafted by the company’s skilled technicians. Alongside a popularity vote and hands-on workshops, the exhibition also features past works and a photo corner designed for social media delight. More than novelty, it highlights a uniquely Japanese craft where visual storytelling and culinary culture intersect.

Iwasaki Co., Ltd. – New Food Sample Exhibition

CHAIRS, TABLES, AND TOOLS SHAPED BY TIME AND REPAIR

At Maruni Osaka, ‘Manufacture: Allure of Tradition’ offers a fresh perspective on Maruni Wood Industry’s craftsmanship and legacy. Drawing from over 90 years of history, the exhibition presents the company’s approach to detailed construction, repair, and the use of recycled materials. By revisiting its archives and reinterpreting tradition, Maruni explores how high-quality furniture can stir the senses and speak to the heart, reconstructing heritage through a contemporary lens.

Maruni Wood Industry Inc. – Manufacture: Allure Of Tradition

CARTOON LOGIC MEETS CONTEMPORARY ART

At Laugh & Peace Art Gallery, alan’s solo exhibition ‘Re:Re:’ brings together works from his signature series ‘[Under 50% + Point]’ and a new body of abstract compositions. Known for layering elements from mass culture – such as existing artworks, logos, and characters – onto a single canvas, alan playfully challenges notions of originality. His latest pieces shift the focus toward color distribution and form, inviting viewers into a vibrant world where pop culture fragments into rhythm, hue, and reinterpretation.

project info: 

name: Osaka Art & Design 2025:  Overlaps —Where Passions Encounter
areas: Umeda, Dojima, Nakanoshima, Kyomachibori, Honmachi, Shinsaibashi, Namba, Abeno,  and other areas in Osaka
dates: May 28 – June 24, 2025

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