Student Artists Awaken Mythical Beasts of the Echigo Region Using Straw

japanese art, design and culture

straw sculptures on display at the 2025 Wara Art Festival

Autumn is officially upon us. It’s the season of shorter days, brighter moons and bountiful harvests. Niigata prefecture, in Northern Japan, is known for its rice paddies and rice production. 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. It can be plowed down as soil improver, fed to livestock, or even woven into decorative ornaments.

But before any of that, for the past 11 years Uwasekigata Park has hosted a Wara Art Festival by teaming up with art students to create creatures, both real and mythical, from rice straw.

This year, the theme for the festival was “awakening the sleeping beasts of Echigo” with art students constructing a total of 5 giant wara sculptures each modeled after mythical creatures with ties to the region. There’s a tiger, koi fish, dragon, nine-tail fox and tortoise.

The 2025 Wara Art Festival is on view through October 31, 2025. It’s located within the grounds of Uwasekigata Park.

The Wara Art Festival all started in 2006 when the local district reached out to Musashino Art University to