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©2025 elleemme studio
ARS
Regione Marche x Expo 25 Osaka
location
client
year
status
collaborators
Italy Pavillon - Expo 25 Osaka, Japan
Regione Marche
2025
completed
Antonella Nonnis - curator
ARS is an identity-defining word of the Italic peninsula, encompassing multiple meanings: ability, skill, talent, technique, science, art, craftsmanship. With the ARS exhibition, Regione Marche explores the region’s identity through craftsmanship, landscape, and design, celebrating the local companies and products that stand out for their mastery both in Japan and around the world.
The exhibition space, inspired by the soft, rolling hills of the Marche region, is shaped using 28 mm corrugated cardboard, a dry-assembled fully
recyclable material, that creates an immersive and structural environment. Layered contours define rooms and thresholds, evoking both Japanese domestic interiors and Marche’s artisan heritage.
ARS unfolds through four narrative sections, where each space presents a curated selection of furniture, fashion, and design objects, global icons of regional excellence. Self-supporting byōbu-like elements, recalling the intimacy of Japanese architecture, frame the displays and guide the visitor through a dialogue between tradition and innovation, between arts and crafts, between spaces, individuals, and relationships.
Among the highlights are four black-background tapestries, designed by renowned architects Kengo Kuma, Yuko Nagayama, Tomo Ara, and Migliore+Servetto, and produced by i-Mesh. These works embody the convergence of architectural vision and textile artistry. At the center of the exhibition stands Controluce, a site-specific installation by Oliviero Fiorenzi that acts as a poetic focal point and spatial anchor.
Every element of ARS reflects a sustainable, modular, and lightweight approach, where architecture and visual language form an inseparable whole, merging Italian and Japanese cultures into a cohesive spatial and cultural narrative.