‘Osaka Kaiju’ at EXPO 2025: a hymn to the Ocean by artist Jean Jullien and the Tara Ocean Foundation
From 15 May to 12 June 2025, French artist Jean Jullien and the Tara Ocean Foundation, in partnership with AXA, are presenting a brand new exhibition at the France Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka. Entitled ‘Osaka Kaiju’, our link with the Ocean: universal, loving and vital, this exhibition highlights the beauty and fragility of the Ocean through a monumental and immersive work. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Cofrex, the Compagnie française des expositions, the Japanese contemporary art gallery Nanzuka and agnès b..
Create to preserve
Today, it is essential to unite the forces available to speak out for the Ocean. Through their singular perspectives, artists can become players committed to its protection.
The artist Jean Jullien, driven by his passion for the marine environment, offers a sensory and intimate experience at the heart of ocean life.
Hosted in the French Pavilion, whose theme is a hymn to love, Jean Jullien offers us a supernatural encounter over 200m2 with his gentle monster ‘Osaka Kaiju’. Halfway between a ship and a sea creature, this monumental floating work invites the public to plunge into a little-known marine universe.
Our perception of the ocean and its resources has been built up over the centuries around stories and myths that have fed the imagination of communities. Jean Jullien uses his art as a mirror of the contemporary world. His illustrations are humorous visual reflections. His aim is to explore the relationship between man and his environment, and our direct link with the Ocean, in the face of tomorrow’s environmental and societal challenges.
Jean Julien stated that he is honoured to have been invited by the Tara Ocean Foundation to tell the story of its work. Although based in Japan, the Osaka Kaiju is a link between the different areas and cultures linked to the sea, in keeping with the idea defended by the Foundation of a single great Ocean. Half ship, half aquatic creature, the Kaiju exhibited here has travelled to all the world’s marine areas, bringing back many traces of its journey. Its scarred body tells of the lives, customs and legends encountered in this great blue element.
Nourished by the countless marine myths and legends of Antiquity, he has turned this narrative process on its head to continue the story and has inscribed on his skin new stories that tell of climate issues, perilous migrations, overfishing and territorial conflicts – so many new personalities in an already rich allegorical pantheon. Jean Jullien was inspired by the marks of wear and tear on boat hulls and the many scars on the skin of marine mammals, evidence of violent encounters with our world or confrontations with their fellow creatures. Like the tattoos of navigators, sailors and pirates, the drawings on the body of our Kaiju tell the new myths of our marine world.
The artist’s works in volume, his droll characters and his drawings inspired by contemporary culture are all tributes to a world of which we still only have a fragmentary knowledge, and which he invites us to discover in a poetic way to convince audiences that looking at the Ocean from another angle is a necessity for the future of the planet.
‘Faced with our common challenge, the 2025 Universal Exhibition with the artist Jean Jullien is an opportunity to bring together diverse cultures to defend the living world, protect the Ocean and honour the cultural wealth of each people…’ shares Myriam Thomas, Director of the Ocean Litteracy Unit within the Tara Ocean Foundation.
A hymn to the universal and vital love that connects us to the Ocean. An invisible link that we cannot ignore.
Working together to raise awareness to the Ocean
The Osaka Kaiju exhibit is the fruit of a collaboration between a number of players united by the same ambition: to raise awareness of the need to preserve the Ocean through contemporary art. Led by French artist Jean Jullien, this monumental installation came into being thanks to the concerted commitment of COFREX (Compagnie Française des Expositions), the Japanese contemporary art gallery NANZUKA, Maison agnès b. Japon and the Tara Océan Foundation, with the support of AXA. Together, they have created a powerful, poetic and accessible work that invites young and old alike to reflect on the beauty and vulnerability of the Ocean.
Tara Ocean Japan
Tara Ocean Japan is the Japanese sister organisation of the Tara Ocean Foundation. Under the presidency of Étienne Bourgois and with Yumiko Patouillet as Secretary General, it was created at the end of 2016, ahead of the Tara schooner’s many stopovers in Japan during the Tara Pacific expedition (2016-2018). Since its foundation, the organisation has focused on major global marine issues through research carried out along Japan’s coastal zones. Its flagship projects include the study of plastic pollution as part of the Tara JAMBIO Microplastic mission (2020-2023), and the exploration of carbon sequestration mechanisms by marine ecosystems through the Tara JAMBIO Blue Carbon mission currently underway (2024 to present).
The artist Jean Jullien
Jean Jullien is a French artist whose work spans illustration, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, books, clothing and design objects. After studying at Central Saint Martins, followed by an MA at the Royal College of Art in 2010, he became known for his unique visual style that blends humour, warmth and insight. Jean Jullien has collaborated with numerous international media and brands, including The New York Times, National Geographic, RCA Records, Le Centre Pompidou, Hermès, Petit Bateau and Vogue.
Alongside his collaborations, he has had numerous solo exhibitions in major cities around the world, including San Francisco, London, Berlin, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Brussels. His visual language is shaped not only by an academic artistic training, but also by a deep connection with various cultural influences. These include Japanese manga such as Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball and City Hunter, as well as French comics and the works of artists such as Raymond Savignac, Tomi Ungerer and Jean-Jacques Sempé. His playful, interdisciplinary creativity moves freely between art, design and pop culture.
AXA
These actions would not be possible without AXA’s commitment, alongside the Tara Ocean Foundation since the launch of the Tara Europa scientific expedition (April 2023 – July 2024).
This partnership is fully in line with AXA’s raison d’être: ‘Acting for human progress by protecting what matters’. This is an ambition shared with the Foundation, which places science, education and cooperation at the heart of its efforts to defend the Ocean and all living things.
Making the Ocean a common concern
The Tara Ocean Foundation will be present at the French Pavilion at EXPO 2025, from 15 May to 11 June 2025, and will also be in Nice from 9 to 13 June for the United Nations Ocean Conference – UNOC 2025.
Under the co-presidency of France and Costa Rica, UNOC 2025 aims to unite nations around concrete policy solutions to the urgent global challenges facing the Ocean. As an advisor to the UNOC and thanks to its status as a UN Special Observer, the Tara Ocean Foundation is playing an active role during the conference, organising a series of events and activities before and during the summit.
EXPO 2025 offers a unique opportunity to raise awareness among the international community – particularly Japan – of the importance of preserving the Ocean and to encourage collective action. The event will also be an opportunity for the Tara Ocean Foundation to announce its next expedition to South-East Asia in 2026, the aim of which is to study the resilience of coral reefs in the face of global warming.