Rice Straw Animal Sculptures from the 2017 Wara Art Festival www.spoon-tamago.com

Around this time of year the rice harvest becomes a big deal, as well as the tons of rice straw, or wara, that is leftover.
This year is the 10th anniversary of Niigata’s Wara Art Festival.
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.