Women’s Pavilion as a Trigger to Kickstart People’s Awareness of Women’s Issues

Cartier, a high-end French jewelry maison, will exhibit the Women’s Pavilion in Collaboration with Cartier at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, jointly with the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition. The concept of the pavilion is “Living Together, Designing Together, For the Future.” The company will communicate a wide range of information from the pavilion, upholding the themes of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

What does Cartier want to convey to the world through the exposition? We interviewed Miyachi June, President and CEO, Cartier Japan.

Living Together, Designing Together, For the Future - Exhibition following on from Expo 2020 Dubai

What passions are behind your theme “Living Together, Designing Together, For the Future” of the pavilion this time?

When we exhibited the Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai for the first time, our tagline was “When women thrive, humanity thrives.” We believe that the theme of women’s empowerment is not just for women, but is something that everyone should think about, regardless of gender, age, and nationality. For this reason, we definitely wanted to include the word “together” in the theme. This expresses our passion for the development of a more fulfilling society in which people can live more comfortably by uniting all their efforts as members of a society.

The exposition this time upholds some universal themes. While these themes represent universal concepts, they can also be considered from our diverse, individual viewpoints, understanding, awareness, and situations. What we hope to achieve through our pavilion is to lead each visitor to feel these universal and difficult themes with the heart. We expect that this awareness will become a trigger for visitors to consider these themes and take concrete action.

Approaches to developing women’s empowerment for a better society

What led your company to decide on the exhibition of the Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, following on from Expo 2020 Dubai?

Our Women’s Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai received a great response. I realized that the issue of women’s empowerment in Dubai was part of the greater theme of approaches to developing a better society.

Until then, I had not been very aware of the issue of women’s empowerment. However, my experience of the exposition in Dubai became a trigger to kickstart my awareness of the issue. Once your awareness is triggered, it will never stop. Now women’s empowerment is always on my mind, prompting me to research and raising my awareness of the current problems in Japan. I believe that our initiative holds great significance as a trigger to kickstart the awareness of as many people as possible.

Cartier has been running a program for female entrepreneurs called “Cartier Women’s Initiative” since 2006. In addition, our “Cartier Philanthropy” provides educational and medical support for women and children, mainly in developing countries.

Cartier’s first creative director was appointed in 1933 and was a woman. This led us to place great importance on independence, or self-reliance, regardless of gender. I believe that this corporate culture has fostered various activities, including the exhibition of the Women’s Pavilion.

Speedy action necessary for overcoming the gender gap

What do you think of the current situation of women’s empowerment in Japan?

I suppose that it is only recently that the theme of gender has started to be discussed more by the media. I understand that people have a variety of opinions on this issue. Japan’s gender gap index has not even made it to the global top 100. However, while I also know that Japan is doing more than nothing, it has a lot of room for improvement and acceleration. As other countries have also been tackling this issue, I believe that Japan can learn a lot by exchanging common challenges and solutions with these countries.

I believe that Japan can accelerate its efforts in three approaches. The first is to change the awareness of a wide range of people. The second is to gain the commitment of people involved in decision-making. The final approach is to develop systems and environments that will make the first two approaches possible. Ideally speaking, I hope that we will eventually not need these stimuli.

The exposition is a place where people come together from all over the world beyond the borders of sectors. Here, we can gather wisdom from around the world, discuss issues, and seek solutions. I believe by that leveraging the exposition Japan can not only absorb a lot of knowledge from around the world but also convey its presence to the rest of the world. As an exhibitor of the Women’s Pavilion, we would like to convey to the world the significance of taking on difficult themes beyond the borders between the public and private sectors.

Reusing the materials of the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai as an effort that represents sustainable consumption

We heard that your company will reuse the materials of the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai as those for the Women’s Pavilion this time.

Ms. Nagayama Yuko, the designer of the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, was strongly conscious of circularity and sustainability from the very beginning of the design process. The reuse of materials is a groundbreaking attempt even in the long history of the world expositions.

The Japan Pavilion, designed by Ms. Nagayama, is made up of many kumiko parts, each with a different shape. We managed all the parts using data, disassembled the Japan Pavilion, transported the parts from Dubai to Japan, stored them, and finally reassembled them. We were able to achieve this initiative thanks to the support of many stakeholders.

In working on the Women’s Pavilion, we were able to tackle not only No. 5 “Achieve gender equality” but also No. 12 “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns” out of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) by reusing the materials. We are very happy about this.

Presenting a variety of sessions as opportunities for visitors to feel, think, and step forward

Could you tell us about the highlights of the exhibition?

Ms. Es Devlin, who is serving as the Global Artistic Lead for this exposition, was at Expo 2020 Dubai the first female artist to work on the UK Pavilion. As she is also a stage director, she worked hard in developing the details of our exhibition after repeatedly considering approaches to conveying our broad, ambiguous theme to individual visitors.

For example, as a direction for the exhibition, we will ask visitors to tell us their given names when they enter the pavilion. We will provide an exhibition mechanism, hoping that we can encourage each visitor to feel, think, and step forward about the details of the displays.

We also heard that you will set up a multipurpose space called WA. How will you use this space?

In this space, we will hold a variety of panel discussions on six themes of the great Earth, business and technology, education and policy, art and culture, philanthropy, and roles and identities. We have already decided on 150 or more sessions to take place during the period of the exposition. We planned these sessions jointly with the representatives of various countries and sectors, including the pavilions of other countries, NPOs, and educational organizations, and great speakers from all over the world will participate in the sessions. I hope that many people will listen to their speeches.

Having strong passion and taking on challenges: “We hope that many visitors will feel our passion.”

The exposition will open soon. Please share your enthusiasm for the opening.

When I talk to people from the official participating countries and private pavilions, I can clearly feel their passion and their efforts for taking on various challenges. I have already become a fan of the exposition.

I strongly hope that many visitors will feel our passion on Yumeshima.



*This article is an English translation of a Japanese article published by METI Journal on March 13.