Japanese Artists Turn Rice Straw Into Awesome Gigantic Animals After Harvesting

After a bountiful harvest, what do you do with leftover rice straw? You dispose them right away, yes? Well, if you are in Japan, that’s not the correct response. You actually re-purpose and transform them into giant animals!

According to recent reports, rice harvesting season recently happened in Northern Japan and they created a unique event to celebrate it. Called the Wara Art Festival, the said event was started back in 2008 at Niigata, a city in Northern Japan.

Giant animals made of straw!

In a recent BoredPanda feature, we learn that the said festival “began as a creative collaboration between the city’s tourism division and the Musashino Art University.”

Japanese students work hard together and use bound rice straw to create the massive animals.

The straw sculptures are impressively detailed.

Everyone loves these giant straw animals!

If you’re headed to Niigata, you really need to check out the Wara Art Festival.

BoredPanda further shared that, in the past, rice straw was “widely used in Japan to produce various goods, such as tatami mats” but things have changed a lot in the country after the material has since been “replaced by wood and plastic in most instances”.

Students from Musashino Art University collaborate to produce the huge masterpieces.

They use bound rice straw as the main material for their projects.

The finished sculptures are eventually displayed during the event.

Watch this video below:

For more information about the Wara Art Festival, you can go log on to their official website or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.