Tuesday 3 October 2017

After Tons Of Rice Have Been Harvested,

what can You do with the straw or wara that it is called?


there are a number of uses for it, it can be plowed back into the fields to improve the soil, fed to livestock, or even woven into decorative ornaments, but for the past 9 years Uwasekigata Park, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, has hosted a Wara Art Festival by teaming up with art students to create creatures, both large and small, from rice straw, 

 this year is the 10th anniversary of Niigata’s Wara Art Festival, and to commemorate, participants have sculpted animals twice as large as previous years,

the Wara Art Festival all started in 2006 when the local district reached out to Musashino Art University to seek guidance on transforming their abundant amount of rice straw into art, 

 and in 2008, the very first Wara Art Festival was held, since then, every year the school sends art students up to Niigata to assist in creating sculptures made out of rice straw,

the festivities have ended but the sculptures are on display through October 31, 2017, what a fun way to use the stalks of rice.


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