Jean Jullien’s Ocean Guardian ‘Osaka Kaiju’ Makes Waves at France Pavilion, EXPO 2025
© Jean Jullien _Osaka Kaiju_, courtesy NANZUKA, Fondation Tara Océan et Axa 2025
May 8, 2025: The Tara Ocean Foundation, in partnership with AXA and in collaboration with Cofrex and NANZUKA, is pleased to present an exhibition within the France Pavilion from 15 May to 12 June by the artist Jean Jullien: “Osaka Kaiju”.
“As far back as I can remember, the Ocean has always had a very strong impact on me.” says Jean Jullien. Driven by his passion for the marine environment, Jean Jullien, a renowned French artist, will be offering a sensory and intimate experience at the heart of Ocean life.
Hosted in the France Pavilion and supported by AXA, this exhibition — themed as a hymn to love — showcases the artistic work of Jean Jullien in a space of over two hundred square meters. His creation offers a surreal encounter with his gentle monster, Osaka Kaiju. Halfway between a ship and a sea creature, this monumental, floating, anthropomorphic figure invites visitors to dive 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 imaginations of communities. Jean Jullien uses his art as a mirror of the contemporary world. His illustrations are humorous visual reflections. His aim is to question the relationship between man and his environment, and our direct link with the Ocean in the face of tomorrow’s environmental and societal challenges.
The artist’s installation, droll characters and drawings, inspired by contemporary Japanese culture, are all tributes to a world of which we still have only a fragmentary knowledge, and which he invites us to discover in a poetic way. A hymn to the universal and vital love that links us to the Ocean. An invisible link that we cannot ignore.
“Faced with our shared challenge of protecting the Ocean and our planet, the 2025 World Expo will be a chance to bring together diverse cultures to stand up for Life, to protect the Ocean and to honor the cultural richness of the different peoples.” shares Myriam Thomas, Director of the Ocean literacy department within the Tara Ocean Foundation.
Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan: An opportunity to make the Ocean a common concern.
The Tara Ocean Foundation will participate in the France Pavilion at EXPO 2025 from May 15 to June 12, 2025, culminating in Ocean Week, which will run in parallel with the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC 2025), held in Nice, France, from June 9 to 13.
Under the co-presidency of France and Costa Rica, UNOC 2025 aims to unite nations around concrete political solutions to the pressing global challenges facing the Ocean. As a UNOC event advisor and thru its UN Special Observer status, the Tara Ocean Foundation will play an active role during the conference, organizing a series of events and activities both leading up to and during the summit.
EXPO 2025 offers a unique platform to raise international awareness—particularly in Japan—about the importance of ocean preservation and to drive collective action. The event will also serve as an opportunity for the Tara Ocean Foundation to announce its upcoming 2026 expedition to Southeast Asia, focused on studying the resilience of coral reefs in the face of global warming.