Installation of Giant “Jellyfish Sundial” in Seiko Group-Sponsored “Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion” at 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo

Seiko Group Corporation (Chairman & Group CEO, CCO: Shinji Hattori; head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan, hereinafter “Seiko”) is pleased to announce its partnership with the “Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion” (hereinafter “Jellyfish Pavilion”), produced by musician, mathematician, and STEAM educator Sachiko Nakajima, as one of the Signature Pavilions of the 2025 World Expo (hereinafter “Osaka-Kansai Expo”).

As part of this collaboration, Seiko will install a 2-meter-wide sundial, inspired by jellyfish and symbolizing the origin of life, within the Jellyfish Pavilion. Additionally, Seiko plans to conduct a workshop called Toki-iku Exciting Sundial-Making Classroom, where participants can create their own sundials and reflect on the relationship between humanity and time. Through these initiatives, Seiko aims to support Sachiko Nakajima’s vision of creating a space where people can experience the joy and excitement of life and enhance their lives together.

Seiko is committed to creating a future full of smiles, as stated in our Group purpose. To achieve this, we will promote our educational initiative Toki-iku, which aims to help children and young people, who will grow up to lead the next generation, to learn the importance of Time as well as developing their own thinking skills. Under the concept of “Learning about Time, Creating the Future,” we have been delivering exciting experiences that allow participants to connect with the essence of Time. These experiences include programs such as the Seiko Exciting Time & Timepieces School, and activities in fields such as sports, music, and the environment.

The Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion (theme: “Enhancing Life”), produced by Sachiko Nakajima, is based on the concept of creating a space where people can feel the joy and excitement of life through play, learning, sports, and the arts, and enhance their lives together. As a company whose main business deals with time, Seiko has come to support this project because we view life as “living in time,” and also because we feel this concept has something in common with the goals of our Toki-iku activities.

As part of this sponsorship, Seiko will create and install a 2-meter diameter Seiko Jellyfish Sundial within the grounds of the Jellyfish Pavilion, inspired by the motif of jellyfish.

The sundial was humanity’s first clock, allowing us to tell time using the sun, which we also think of as the “source of life.” The cycles of time created by the sun shining on the earth have repeated countless times since long before humanity existed, and within a short span of these cycles, various forms of life emerged. The sundial we have created for this event was inspired by jellyfish, which emerged in the earliest stages of life on Earth. In a sense, they, too, can be considered the origin of life on this planet. The Seiko Jellyfish Sundial is not merely a sculpture; it’s a working sundial that tells the time. With this installation, we hope to provide visitors with an opportunity to reflect on the concepts of “life,” “evolution,” and “creativity.”

The sundial, which was inspired by the shape of a jellyfish, is 2 meters in diameter. At the center of its flat surface is a normon (a pole for casting shadows), which allows viewers to tell the time using the movement of the sun.
The accuracy of any sundial changes slightly with the seasons due to the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and the tilt of the earth's axis. Therefore, in order to improve the accuracy in any season, this sundial displays a formula for correcting the time indicated by the shadow.
The surface is also translucent, with blue and green lights flashing gently within, giving a visible representation of the time while also evoking the pulse of life and the shimmering of the ocean. This lighting display is primarily powered by a solar battery, which is only fitting, since the time shown on the dial also derives from the power of the sun.

Dimensions: Approximately 2 meters in diameter and 1.6 meters high
Location: Lawn area within the grounds of the Playground of Life: Jellyfish Pavilion
Installation Period: During the Osaka-Kansai Expo

Mindful of the theme “Reflecting on Humanity and Time,” participants will learn about the sundial, humanity’s first clock. This workshop explores how people have engaged with Time and enriched their lives in the process. Participants will create their own personal sundials, learn about the history of timekeeping, and contemplate their future. Experiments using the participants’ original sundials will be conducted on the lawn area within the grounds of the Jellyfish Pavilion.