Expo 2025 Osaka on the road: Travelling exhibition brings ‘Wa! Germany’ to Germany
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The Expo 2025 in Osaka came to an end in October 2025 but its ideas are still having an impact. With the ‘Wa! Germany’ travelling exhibition, the German Pavilion is coming to Germany. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) has entrusted facts and fiction with organising and running a travelling exhibition based on the Expo. The travelling exhibition began at the Japanese-German Center Berlin at the end of April 2026 and will be taking in many other cities throughout Germany afterwards.
Under the theme ‘Designing Future Society for Our Lives’, the Expo 2025 in Osaka became the international ‘People’s Living Lab’ – an experimental field for innovative ideas, technologies and new societal models. The German Pavilion ‘Wa! Germany’ put the concept of circular economy firmly centre stage. In Japanese, “wa” means “circle” and “harmony” – but it can also mean “wow”. With this in mind, the pavilion combined architecture, exhibition and experience into one holistic concept. Around 75 innovative projects from Germany were presented here, from research and development to application-oriented solutions. The travelling exhibition takes this approach one step further – as a platform for innovative projects from Germany and as a place where people can experience central future themes vividly at first hand.
A piece of expo and a platform for innovations
Six selected exhibits from the German Pavilion were prepared for the tour and presented in a new setting. These exhibits demonstrate the range of innovative projects from Germany – from circular construction and hydrogen technologies to sustainable fashion and digitally enhanced agriculture. The exhibits were specially developed as interactive applications that translate complex content into easy-to-understand formats, providing different points of access for various target groups. After all, emotion, narrative power and playing games all help to bring knowledge to life. As well as this, the exhibits have been designed to bring generations together – from young visitors to seasoned industry specialists. The interactive audio guides known as ‘Circulars’ play a key role in this regard, leading visitors through the exhibition, providing information in accessible, bite-size form and helping visitors to access complex topics in their own way.
The exhibition is not just a means of revisiting the expo but is also designed to be a platform. It positions itself strategically as a showcase for innovations from Germany, shines a spotlight on the latest developments and links up topics from business and research. The exhibition also features virtual access to the expo, where visitors can explore the German Pavilion digitally through interactive stations. The Virtual Pavilion adds a digital level of knowledge-sharing to the physical exhibition. Fun, interactive and audiovisual, it shows what Germany presented at the Expo 2025 in Osaka. With the aid of interactive stations and the Circulars, visitors can immerse themselves in the world of the circular economy and experience innovations from Germany at first hand.
As Dietmar Jähn, Managing Partner at facts and fiction, explains:
In this way, this approach combines the circular economy concept with a new form of usage – developing the exhibits for new target groups. This is the first time that exhibition pavilion exhibits have been reused by being taken on tour, thereby putting the concept of the circular economy into practice.
Innovation at first hand
The exhibition bundles central future fields and its exhibits allow innovative approaches from Germany to be experienced in tangible form.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Urban mining: viewing cities as circular raw materials depots
Based on the example of Concular’s Urban Mining Hub, the exhibit in a multi-player game demonstrates how cities can function as material depots when buildings and infrastructures no longer end up as waste but rather are seen as valuable sources of raw materials.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Energy: Germany’s flagship projects – an introduction to the hydrogen economy
This exhibit shows central technologies and processes from H2Mare, H2Giga, TransHyDE and the Fraunhofer Institute for Microengineering and Microsystems IMM. It is based on the game principle of a pinball machine and takes users through all the steps, from generation and storage to usage.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Building: The pavilion – a prime example of circular construction
The exhibit puts forward the German Pavilion as a walk-in exhibit of innovative construction, developed with input from a great many cooperation partners from Germany. It whisks visitors away on an exciting journey that shows them how the pavilion came about.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Farming: Technology-based agriculture
Visitors experience how artificial intelligence and other key technologies increase yield, protect resources and open up new ways of producing food. The exhibit presents the Food Farming Laser developed by Hanover-based research institute LZH, which combats weeds without using chemicals.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Food: Urban food production in a circular system
The exhibit shows how food production in cities can work within a closed-loop system. In an artificial ecosystem, plants, fish and insects all grow and provide nourishment for one another. Based on the game principle of a Tamagotchi, visitors look after the system in a multi-player game, maintain a healthy balance and finally harvest the resources it produces.
(Copyright: Stefan Schilling)
Fashion: New materials and production approaches – away from fast fashion and towards slow fashion
The exhibit showcases 12 innovative projects from materials research in science all the way to start-ups: HydroFiChi, MOOT – Made Out Of Trash, Fungiskin, ALGEAMY, CO2Tex, Chiengora, Lyohemp, Bridge and Tunnel, Emeka Suits, NextLevelKnit, Lotta Ludwigson and Loopamid.
Visitors immerse themselves in the world of the circular economy with the help of the "Circulars" and experience innovations from Germany firsthand (Copyright: Stefan Schilling).
Nationwide tour commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE)
The most recent expo took place in the Japanese city of Osaka from 13 April to 13 October 2025. facts and fiction was tasked by the BMWE with organising and running a travelling exhibition based on the expo. After opening in the JDZB in Berlin, the travelling exhibition will make its way around Germany. Further stops are currently being planned, including in Stuttgart, Munich and Cologne. The aim is to make the expo content accessible to a wide audience and, at the same time, to reach new target groups for innovative projects and circular approaches. The exhibition takes the expo to places where it would not have otherwise been possible to experience it and creates new touchpoints for interaction and networking.
About facts and fiction
Founded in Cologne in 1992, facts and fiction is an interdisciplinary creative agency with a permanent team of over 70 people at its Cologne and Berlin offices. facts and fiction designs and implements innovative analogue and digital projects for the areas of art, culture, business and science. Here, it focuses on museums and exhibitions, expo pavilions, events, exhibits and digital solutions for participatory and individualised experiences.
facts and fiction developed the German, Austrian and EU pavilions for Expo 2025, which took place in Osaka, Japan, between April and October of last year. The agency has 25 years of expo experience and, with the latest addition of Japan, has now been responsible for a total of 13 country participations. Major past projects in the field of public museums and exhibitions include the German Mining Museum in Bochum and the Berlin Exhibition in the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. The agency is currently working on a number of projects, including the design of the Zeppelin Tribune and Zeppelin Field, a place of learning and interaction in Nuremberg, and on permanent exhibitions for both the Museum Of Natural History in Basel and the Buddenbrookhaus museum in Lübeck. In Berlin, facts and fiction is also active in political communication, where it has been commissioned by ministries, institutions and associations with the task of developing a wide range of analogue, hybrid and digital event formats and exhibitions in the context of political discourse. In 2025, it once again secured the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) account there.
facts and fiction has implemented more than 700 projects in 50 countries and its work has already been singled out for numerous prizes such as the BIE Award, the iF Communication Award, the Art Directors Club Competition, the Galaxy Award and the Red Dot Award.
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