Expo Osaka 2025: Italy triumphs with art, innovation, and diplomacy to address global challenges

The success of the 2025 Expo in Osaka, currently underway, represents one of the highest expressions of international cultural diplomacy in recent years, transforming the artificial island of Yumeshima into a true global platform for dialogue and collaboration. According to Alessandro Giuli, Italy’s Minister of Culture, Expo Osaka has been not only a showcase for innovation but also a world forum for addressing humanity’s greatest challenges, from sustainability to digital integration. At the ceremony for Italy’s National Day, held on September 12, Giuli credited Japan and the Bureau International des Expositions with redefining the very nature of these expositions, making them central moments of dialogue on fundamental global issues in an era of environmental, economic, and geopolitical crises.

Italy’s Pavilion has captured the attention of both the public and critics thanks to a cultural program that bridges past and future, humanism and artificial intelligence, ancient and contemporary art. “Art regenerates life” is the guiding message of Italy’s participation, which successfully combines the country’s great artistic tradition with a modern vision of sustainability and innovation. Designed by architect Mario Cucinella, the pavilion is a veritable twenty-first-century “ideal city”: spaces that blend Renaissance squares, theaters, and gardens into a circular, green, and reversible urban structure, within which visitors can follow thematic paths devoted to health, food, energy, digital technologies, and design.

The strong public response is linked to the bold decision, strongly backed by Minister Giuli, to bring to Osaka some of the most precious original works of Italian art, both ancient and contemporary. These choices have been rewarded by visitors and the Japanese press, which has described Italy’s presence as one of the richest and most influential of the entire Expo. From the visionary power of works by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo to the modernity of artists such as Mimmo Paladino and Jago, culminating in the installation of Michelangelo’s “Risen Christ,” Italy has offered Japanese and international audiences a unique artistic experience, demonstrating the national genius’s capacity to feed the future through a dialogue between tradition and experimentation.

Italy’s Pavilion has also stood out as a platform for networking and economic diplomacy, hosting hundreds of events—ranging from institutional meetings and workshops to business gatherings and initiatives promoting Made in Italy. The Lazio Region and other territories have played leading roles in attracting investment and building relationships with Japanese and Asian partners, showcasing the vitality of small businesses, universities, research centers, and start-ups across the Italian ecosystem. Official figures show significant increases both in public attendance and in the participation of business delegations: hundreds of economic and cultural events have been organized, with thousands of attendees across auditoriums, halls, and exhibition spaces.

The Osaka Expo is also distinguished by its focus on the environment, with the Italian pavilion among the most sustainable of the entire event thanks to the use of recycled materials and certified timber, low-impact technologies, and the possibility of reusing the structure at the end of the exposition. This achievement has also been recognized by independent bodies and cited as a best practice in reversible architecture applied to major events. The pavilion was conceived as a “Hangar of Knowledge,” a space where art, science, technology, and business engage in dialogue along the path of innovation and sustainability.

The theme of Expo 2025 Osaka, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” aligns perfectly with Italy’s narrative and proposal, invoking the universal values of beauty and creativity as tools for social cohesion and progress. In his speech, Giuli echoed the thought of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, stressing that Italy and Japan are united by a shared vision in which culture and creativity form the foundations of a prosperous society open to change.

Beyond its artistic and architectural value, Italy’s Pavilion assumes strategic significance for the country’s international projection: a meeting place where companies can forge relationships, attract investment, promote exports, and launch research and scientific-cooperation projects. The diplomacy of growth finds in Osaka a laboratory for new alliances between the public and private sectors and between regional territories and global markets.

The climate of collaboration and friendship between Italy and Japan—strengthened by the personal rapport between their leaders and by the work of Ambassador Mario Vattani and Italy’s diplomatic coordinators—has made Italy’s presence at the Expo more effective, offering Asian audiences the image of an Italy that is innovative, open, and a steward of its heritage. The ambition to contribute to the common good and to tackle humanity’s great challenges together—from the ecological transition to artificial intelligence to the valorization of cultural diversity—has become the leitmotif of this truly groundbreaking World Expo.

Thus, once again, Italy’s role as a protagonist on the international stage is affirmed: a promoter of beauty, innovation, cultural exchange, and economic collaboration. In the closing message of his remarks, Giuli reminded us that we must safeguard the planet together for the sake of younger generations, restoring to Expo 2025 its authentic meaning as a global platform capable of offering the world concrete solutions, ideas, and inspiration for the future.