| Osaka, Mar. 19 – Before the official opening of the Osaka/Kansai Expo, its Signature Pavilion, “EARTH MART,” unveiled its contents centered on food on March 18. Kundo Koyama, a Japanese radio and television scriptwriter, produces the pavilion. The theme of the pavilion is “Thinking about life through food.” Visitors can experience the food life cycle through exhibits such as art objects made from withered vegetables, a monument crafted from a large number of chicken eggs, and an exhibit showcasing meat packs and livestock birthing scenes.
One of the main exhibits is the “Marketplace of Life,” which illustrates the total amount of food a person consumes throughout their lifetime. In a section named “Lives of Vegetables,” it exhibits 78 different withered vegetables and their flowers. These vegetables were supplied by a farmer who grows indigenous vegetables in Unzen City, Nagasaki Prefecture. The exhibits are designed to make people feel that humans are exploiting and eating vegetables in the middle stage of their lives, according to Koyama.  Koyama showing a monument made of 28,000 eggshells to illustrate how many eggs one Japanese person consumes in their lifetime. Below the monument is a giant model of a fried egg that assumes the use of the same number of eggs. (in Osaka City) |