Due to the gorgeous fall foliage, autumn is one of the most attractive seasons in Japan. And every year during this time, Uwasekigata Park in the region of Niigata Prefecture hosts the Wara Art Festival. Since 2008, Tokyo's Musashino Art University students have been coming to the area to build enormous animal sculptures out of straw.
The exceptional rice produced in the Niigata prefecture is well known. In all of Japan, the rice harvest yield is highest in this area. At the start of the fall season, rice is normally harvested. Local farmers devise some ways to recycle leftover rice straw after harvest. They utilize the rice straw, known as "wara" in Japanese, to feed animals, create fiberboard, improve the soil, make paper pulp, and other things. Niigata farmers are still left with a lot of straws after using all these recycling techniques. So they decided to ask Tokyo-based art students to use the scraps to make sculptures.
Huge animal straw sculptures are on display at the Wara Art Festival every year in Niigata Prefecture.
Several Musashino Art University students accepted the offer and traveled to Niigata for the avant-garde art exhibition in late August 2008. They were able to make colossal works of straw art by braiding the strong straw over a wooden frame. A big snail, two enormous ducks, an enormous fungus, and numerous human figurines were all fashioned from rice straw. The children promised to come back again the following year after the initial art exhibit was a big success. And so it started to become a yearly custom.
The yearly Wara Art Festival has included other fearsome animals during the years that have come after. There have been sculptures made of a dragon, mammoth, whale, gorilla, crocodile, rhino, dinosaur, and more. Both residents and visitors swarm to the Uwasekigata Park to view the amazing sculptures on exhibit. After the rice harvest, which typically begins in late August, art students come up with stunning new sculptures to beautify the space. Up until the end of October, visitors can also take pictures with the enormous sculptures.
The 2020 Wara Art Festival was postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. So let's have a look at some of the most magnificent sculptures that have graced the occasion in the past. And the 2021 Wara Art Festival will feature even more vicious animal sculptures.
.jpg)
.jpg)
