Wara Art (Uwasekigata Park)

Giant sculptural animals made from leftover rice straw, displayed each autumn

Every autumn after the rice harvest, students from Musashino Art University descend on Uwasekigata Park near Niigata city to build enormous animals from the leftover straw (wara) of the Koshihikari harvest. The results — bears, crabs, dinosaurs, foxes, boar — stand up to four metres tall and are scattered around the lakeside park for visitors to walk among and climb on.

The sculptures are on display each September and October, and draw visitors from across Japan. The park itself, set around the coastal lagoon at Uwasekigata, is beautiful in any season — a reminder that the Niigata coastline is more than just a transit zone.

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A story
The Wara Art project began in 2008 when art students from Musashino Art University were invited to Niigata to solve a practical problem: what to do with the enormous quantities of rice straw left after the Koshihikari harvest. Their answer — massive animals built from tightly woven wara straw — has become one of the most photographed sights in Japan. The sculptures are built new each year, so no two seasons look the same.