What is “GREEN SEED”?
GREEN SEED is a huge time-limited greenery decoration on the ceiling of a concourse running across the center of Umeda, a bustling area in Osaka. The concept is a world emerging in the middle of a big city in early summer, where a wide variety of plants thrive together in clusters. Those lush plants, growing vibrantly in abundance, depict various ideas, including human-nature co-existence and hope for the future. This art installation in Umeda, a busy area in Osaka, is one of the placemaking efforts to create comfortable pathways that entice people to enjoy strolling around. It aims to turn this concourse, a hub of pedestrian traffic in Umeda, into a place that nurtures culture through person-to-person and person-to-city interactions. Since it started in 2022, this annual, early-summer project has enjoyed the gaze of passers-by. In its third year, or the Final Chapter, the Seed will finally grow into a Big Tree, bringing the project to its finale.
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Chapter 1: Sow a Seed and Let It Sprout (2022)
A story that began with a single seed
The theme for Chapter 1, the first year of this project, 2022, was “Sow a Seed and Let It Sprout.” With belief in the power of life and hope for the future, the project “planted a seed” at the venue to make it a place for nurturing new culture. In the second year, the project set the theme for Chapter 2: “Let the Seed Take Root and Grow” to express the wish to inspire people with love for Umeda toward the future, like helping a seed take root and grow. The theme for 2024, the Final Chapter of this project, is “Grow Further with the Big Tree. ”The installation for this year will feature the roots of a big tree. The large tree depicts the growth of the GREEN SEED project into a symbol of the concourse. It spreads its roots wide in all directions to send out the message that the concourse is the starting point from which you can move further forward and to which you can return. The roots, extending to hold the soil, are associated with the embracement of people’s dreams and hope.
Highlight of the exhibit
Similar to Chapters 1 and 2, the Final Chapter of this installation is supervised by Kota Mochizuki, a flower artist who runs Shichigatsukadan, “The shop that sells the most dangerously beautiful flowers in Japan.” He also tackles the issue of flower loss and is involved in upcycling discarded flowers and other plants. With the concept of an eco-friendly installation, the decoration for 2024 also partly uses artificial flowers made of recycled plastic bottles.
Please do not miss the spectacular collaboration between art and refreshing greenery, which covers the entire ceiling of the huge concourse, which is 9 m tall and 16.5 m wide.
