What if old sheets didn’t end up in landfills but became art instead?
This is Shady Linnen – an art project turning textile waste into meaningful creations. Together with artists, students and the public, we’re building a sustainable art installation with performances and fashion at this World Expo Outer East Popup Stage!
Participating artists are: Anita Waltman, Marta Fernández, Elky Rosa Gerritsen, Tetisca Huijbrechts, Herman van den Muijsenberg, Inez Ishizaki, Hana-Sophia Imura Vesta, Sophie Janssen, Renee Rienties. Participating students are from KUAS (JP), SSGN (NL), Kawaguchi (JP) and Citadel (NL).
Anita Waltman
Next to being the project leader Anita is also a participating artist in the Shady Linen project. At the World Expo in Osaka a bamboo art installation will arise which she has designed for the outer east popup stage at the World Expo. It will be filled with artworks from artists and students of the project from the Borderless Art Education students and artists the past months. During the presentation at the Popup stage passersby will be invited to participate in this installation to draw on excess linen.
Next to that she will also perform her ‘Sense My Drawing’ performance where she invites the public to be part of her multi-sensory painting performance.
Website: anitawaltman.nl
Marta Fernandez
Deriva, which means drift, was born with a collection that reflects the 10th years living in the Netherlands, a journey with unexpected feelings and emotions. The different chapters will go in a constant circle to acknowledge that we will always need all the stages to understand the others. It is a journey to put into practice. The important thing is to make it to the surface. Our inner world generates our outer world.
We learn how to deal with the chaos, thanks to our stories. The act of remembering is dominated by the beliefs and perspective we have in the moment. Is this real life? Is this a fantasy?
Our memories are dynamic, malleable, and sometimes inaccurate because our brains were designed to navigate a world that is constantly changing.
What are the memories you would like to create today?
Elky Rosa Gerritsen
(1987) creates multi-disciplinary art projects that combine contemporary (physical) theater, performance art and visual art. The works have a philosophical dimension and a personal and engaged approach. Elky Rosa experiments with creating spaces where a judgment-free encounter is possible, shifting the viewer’s perspective. The work seeks corporeal experiences where the audience is part of the action. Spectators are directly engaged and addressed. At the World Expo, she presents Seismic Shift; a performative attempt to redefine our relationship with ourselves and our environment.
Insta: @elkyrosa
Tétisca Huijbrechts
(2000) is a starting environmentally conscious fashion designer.
Her love for reusing clothing and fabrics started at a young age. As well as her interest in tapping into new sources that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable than the current sources. By using the enormous mountain of textiles and making new clothing from it, she wants to show that you can make unique clothing from a combination of existing clothing, accessories and various techniques.
With this, she wants to further shape her vision for a more sustainable fashion industry and prepare herself to play a role in the future of circular fashion.
Inez Ishizaki
(2001) expression is rooted in drawing, she combines this with media such as installation, scenography and the printing arts. A leading question in her work is: how can drawings transform the experience of both the two dimensional and the physical space. In her drawings one is a witness to peculiar intimacies, where bodily habits and exchanges of looks turn into motifs and textures start forming stories of their own. In her work ‘A Rustling of Hands’ (2025) for the World Expo, a fragmented sequence captures hands in the intimate act of dressing others. Hands that have created a quiet choreography through the repeated gestures of folding, wrapping and tightening. Drawn on discarded bedlinen, the work invites the viewers to become aware of the time, care and knowledge involved in dressing the body.
@nannsensu
Japanese title: 指と服の囁き(2025)
Herman van den Muijsenberg
Herman van den Muijsenberg is an independant curator, artist and organizer of exhibitions and events. In his projects he researches sound, it’s role in public space and the way it relates to all kinds of artistic practices. With both an academic background and a history of self-publishing and -organizing, he has an interest for the ways in which art is organised. He has worked as a curator for Extrapool, and many museums and festivals. Herman draws pictures, makes music to do yoga to and has performed for various audiences such as a room full of cats. He explores the sonic quality of seaweed has a fondness of Japanese ambient music.
In his personal sound practice Herman is interested in the process of transformation through sound. In his installations and compositions field recording, synthesized sound and electro acoustic machines mix. He explores the relation between sound and meaning. Can they become a bridge to the unknown? How can sound guide us in shaping a relationship with the other; solid, liquid, alive or in spirit? When collecting and composing with sounds Herman is interested in the sound of material and the materiality of sound.
Hana-Sophia Imura Vesta
Writer, Translator, Interpreter (Japanese–English–Chinese), and Illustrator
A Japanese–American creative based in Japan, Hana-Sophia expresses herself across a wide range of mediums. At the Osaka Expo, she contributed mainly as a coordinator, supporting various artistic collaborations.
Her illustrations and comics often explore the intricacies of human relationships, weaving stories rich with emotional complexity and a sense of each character’s “life history.” While a sense of melancholy may appear, her works always leave a lingering warmth. Currently a university student, she is researching the postwar Japanese history of discrimination against mixed-race individuals(混血児)—a theme that deeply informs her storytelling.
