Behold the Enormous Straw Sculptures of Japan's Wara Art Festival

Niigata is one of the leading provinces for rice production in Japan. During the harvest period, a surplus of rice straw is produced as a byproduct of this process and in the past, the extra material has been used to create a number of traditional objects and tools, such as sandals. As new technologies replace these practices, Niigata City and Musashino Art University (referred to as Musabi) came up with a creative way to repurpose the rice straw -- enlisting the help of its students to create m...