Design studio GSM Project and visual artist Justine Emard have created Pulsations, the visitor experience at the France Pavilion at this year’s Universal Exposition, Osaka 2025, which is running from April 13 to October 13, 2025. Aiming to delight the pavilion’s expected three million visitors, the experience is an immersion in the spirit of France, under the unifying theme of the pulse as the common denominator between humanity, technology and nature.
GSM Project, an internationally acclaimed design studio known for its expertise in visitor experiences and attractions, joined forces with contemporary artist Justine Emard, whose work is exhibited around the world. Their respective approaches to immersive creation met the vision of the entity in charge of the France Pavilion for the Expo, COFREX (Compagnie Française des Expositions): to create a multi-sensory experience that would showcase French creativity and excellence in Japan for the duration of this major event.
GSM and Justine Emard worked together to co-create the overall narrative for the permanent exhibition and the tableaux comprising it, with input from COFREX and the Pavilion’s partners. They formulated artistic and scenographic principles for the experience, with the unifying theme of the pulse. The GSM team also created the visual identity for the Pavilion, including its logo, signage, artistic direction for the permanent exhibition, and staff uniforms.
“This experience is the product of an ambitious collaborative creative process involving all of the project’s partners. The biggest challenge taken on by GSM during the two-year design process was undoubtedly to bring together all the players to imagine a Pavilion that would reflect the essence of France,” —— project director Fabien Lasserre of GSM Project.
Pulsations: Making Hearts Beat
Justine Emard drew inspiration from the Japanese legend of Akai Ito, the red thread of fate, to develop the concept for the experience around the theme proposed by France: “A hymn to love.” Legend has it that an invisible thread tied to our little finger connects us to another being and sets our fate. The legend enabled the artist and the studio to develop experience principles along several distinct lines: the red thread, the hand and the beating heart. These principles influenced the concept for the exhibition, titled Pulsations.
“A focus on the pulse signal – the heartbeat – is the foundation of the experience’s sensibility. Light, sound, images and movement all come together to create an energetic impulse, an inviting beacon to the future,” explains artist Justine Emard, the exhibition’s Artistic Director.
An immersive audio-visual voyage
The team reimagined the concept of the hymn, a unifying song, by creating a new hymn to love in the form of a contemporary electronic remix. The design of the exhibition is embodied in the idea of the pulse – not only the biological rhythm of the heart, but a musical rhythm that synchronizes all of the experience’s different spaces.
“From the moment they enter, visitors are enveloped by an audio-visual pulse. Like a beating heart, a breath of nature, a radiant energy that connects all living things, the pulsation accompanies them throughout their journey through the Pavilion. Pulsations celebrates the invisible force that connects human beings and their environment. Between art and nature, it invites us to feel our profound connection with the living world. Synchronized to the same beat, the musical pulse follows that of the heart, resulting in an audio-visual journey from space to space,” Justine Emard added.
The overarching synchronized audio track accompanies the visitor at a constant tempo from start to finish. GSM and Justine Emard imagined different audio creations, then commissioned by the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/musique) for each tableau in the experience.
Ambitious attendance goals
The exhibition, sponsored by COFREX, features eight immersive tableaux created with the participation of several major partners: Louis Vuitton, Axa, Ninapharm, Vins d’Alsace and Dior. The eight tableaux are linked by a common thread, the pulse. The tableaux last three and a half minutes each and are synchronized at the same tempo. The exhibition is experienced as a single melody evoking the steady stream of visitors.
“The technical challenge is to welcome 2500 people per hour during the six months of the Expo, to reach the ambitious goal of 3 million visitors,” said Fabien Lasserre.
Celebrating past and present heritage
In the exhibition, heritage elements are seen alongside contemporary creations – everything from sculptures by Rodin to a chimera rescued from the fire that engulfed Notre-Dame Cathedral to digital art installations imagined by Justine Emard and GSM. Each artistic medium is meticulously synchronized to create a total artistic experience that immerses visitors in the energy of the pulse.
In the final space, the duo created a tableau titled “Across the Archipelago, the Great Pulsation.” Combining heritage pieces and a multimedia show, the installation is a powerful final immersion in the concept of love. Composed of three conceptual islands depicting the powerful bonds connecting France and Japan through cultural and natural symbols, this archipelago illustrates the ways in which the two countries approach heritage preservation and the protection of biodiversity. The islands present a narrative linking works rescued from the fires at Shuri Castle and Notre-Dame Cathedral; connecting the histories of the sanctuary of Itsukushima and its famous torii with the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel; and creating an encounter between the ecosystems of Japan and French Polynesia. France and Japan thus resonate together in an emotionally rich imagining of the future.
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