Expo 2005. Strange

I’ve just been to probably the largest multi-cultural experience in the world. From what I gather Expo, or 'Banpaku', is held in different places in the world every year. It is a long term, very big, and completely contrived exhibition of every major country throughout the world. Each country has a building, or a section of a building, depending on how big or important they are, to display all their country has to offer. Because of the nature of such a project i.e. the building have to be quickly assembled and disassembled, the displays, despite containing some works of incredible value and beauty end up looking worthless and completely trivial. They have been taken out of context and placed in a comic-book world. However, this fantasy environment created a new, surreal culture of it’s own. It perhaps could be likened to a b-movie film set (anybody not only remember, but love Labyrinth starring David Bowie, as much as I do?). We managed to go to Norway, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, China, and Mexico and eat an Japanese style curry in the space of two hours. It is really very strange how each country wanted to project themselves – they seemed to water down what makes it appealing. For example, Mexico had a very darkened room with a dry-ice ‘door’, and loads of light boxes, and those omnipresent trendy graphics – Yep of course that’s why I would love to go to Mexico, because how completely European cool it is. This, of course, again, opens up all sorts of other questions only marginally interesting to the most boring of graphic design students: is this hegemony in action? Is this what Japanese people actually want to see? Who the hell designed this? If the displays were more ‘authentic’ would people not feel as comfortable, and would they get as many visitors? Is this my future?





In this fake mini-world it was hardly unpleasant – It was clean, spacious, all the staff put me to shame by being at least bi/tri-lingual and happy to please, overall very entertaining, and ironically amusing. This place was a culture unto it’s self and given another five-hundred years would no doubt turn into it’s own recognised and respected land with it’s own rituals and deities. Unfortunately I think it is due to be dismantled sometime around September.