Uruguayan Art at Expo Osaka 2025
Uruguay will participate in Expo Osaka 2025, which will take place in Kansai, Japan, from April 13 to October 13, under the theme «Designing Future Society for Our Lives».
For this global event, the National Institute of Visual Arts (INAV) of the National Department of Culture has selected an exhibition featuring outstanding pieces of contemporary Uruguayan ceramics alongside two video art works. The main goal is to share Uruguayan artistic talent internationally and strengthen cultural ties between Uruguay and Japan.
The artists selected to represent the country are Adela Casacuberta, Silvina Cortés, and Sofía Córdoba, as well as María Fernanda Hernández, Julio Machín, Agustina Parry, and Erika Bamonde, the latter four chosen by the Fire Arts Department the University of the Republic’s Faculty of Arts. Regarding video art, works by Florencia Flanagan and Fede Ruiz Santesteban will be exhibited as well.
About the Artists Selection
The chosen works showcase the diversity and depth of contemporary Uruguayan art through distinctive techniques and a range of perspectives.
Adela Casacuberta will exhibit her evocative pieces «Pink Mushrooms», made of clay and glazed ceramics, which explore natural processes and the emergence of life. Casacuberta has an acclaimed international career, having recently exhibited at the National Museum of Visual Arts.
Silvina Cortés, through her glazed stoneware works, addresses complex tensions between desire and repulsion, identity and abjection, from a poetic and sensorial perspective that challenges the viewer’s understanding of the body and its contradictions.
Sofía Córdoba will contribute an innovative vision through her sculptures «Transdimensional Object», made of high-temperature glazed ceramics. Her works encourage reflection on contemporary culture through a cyborg and Latinxfuturist perspective, blending organic and technological elements.
Complementing the exhibition are works from the Fire Arts Department of the Faculty of Arts (University of the Republic). María Fernanda Hernández, Julio Machín, Agustina Parry, and Erika Bamonde enrich the show with various techniques and aesthetics, offering unique takes on contemporary ceramics.
In the realm of video art, the selected works are «Rebirth from the Ashes» (2021) by Florencia Flanagan, a video performance that questions the meaning of change and transformation, inviting viewers to consider whether ashes signify endings or new beginnings. On the other hand, Fede Ruiz Santesteban will present «The Strange Case of the Gardener» (2012/2016), a visually symbolic and mystical piece that immerses the audience in a fantastic world governed by imagination and faith.
Uruguay will celebrate its National Day at the Expo on June 17, with cultural activities led by the «Quinteto Barrio Sur», featuring Hugo Fattoruso and Mathías Silva (Cuareim 1080), accompanied by a business and institutional delegation coordinated by Uruguay XXI.
This artistic participation adds to the joint efforts led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Uruguay XXI, and numerous public and private entities, in direct collaboration with Uruguay’s commissioner for the exposition, Benjamín Liberoff, further strengthening Uruguay’s cultural presence in Japan.