Tomás Saraceno: Conviviality: Forest of Tranquility, Osaka, Japan

The 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Kansai, Japan with the central theme "Designing a Future Society for Life" will be open from April - November 2025. The "Silent Forest Installation" located in the center of the venue as part of the "Art Expo" surrounds a central pond and includes approximately 1,500 trees. The space symbolizes co-creation with the ecosystem by regenerating the dying life in the surrounding forest. 5 artists, Yoko Ono, Leandro Erlich, Tomás Saraceno, Pierre Huyghe, and PNAT, were invited by co-curators Hiroaki Miyata and Yuko Hasegawa to develop works for the Silent Forest based on this central theme and coexistence with nature. Through forest and the art installations, visitors can connect nature, technology, and culture while feeling the "brilliance of life" at the Expo site. 

 

In the fall of 2024, a team of experts formed by the Osaka Tennoji Zoo conducted a research visit to the Forest of Tranquility in an effort to advise Tomás Saraceno regarding the species of birds, insects and spiders most likely to visit, an potentially build homes, within Conviviality.

 

The research showed that the following species were either already present in The Forest of Tranquility, or may be attracted to the site during their migratory period: Tree Sparrow, Starling, Great Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit, Oriental Greenfinch, Daurian Redstart, Japanese Bush Warbler, Japanese White-Eye, Japanese Leaf Warbler, Red-flanked Bluetail, Olive-backed Pitpit, Brown-eared Bulbul, Dusky Thrush, Oriental Turtle Dove, Carrion Crow, Jungle Crow, Mandarin Duck, Japanese Waxwing, Pacific ducetia grasshopper, Brown-winged Cicada, Rhinoceros beetles, Joro spider, Golden-ringed Dragonfly.

 

Towards spaces of conviviality, the sculpture was developed with a color pallette that birds and insects are already surrounded by; greens and blues in a matte finish. The fruit bearing trees and flowers with nectar surrounding the sculpture, also provide a good source of food.