Thinking of Niigata from afar, Musabi students decided the theme and designs

Wara Art began from an exchange between then Iwamuro Village, a well-known hot spring town, and Professor Miyajima Shingo from Musabi. They pondered what they could do with the rice straw from Niigata, one of the country’s top rice-producing regions. This query reminded them of how people think “Snow Festival” when they hear “Sapporo” and they wondered if they could do the same for Niigata and a festival of rice straw. Thus, Wara Art was born. Originally, it was treated like an extra-curricular activity of the research lab, but as the years went on, Wara Art gained wider recognition and more students joined in on the project. It grew into a large scale project with local links, more designs, and the addition of a week-long trip to Niigata to build the sculptures each year, and in 2016 it became a collaborative project between industry, government, and academia. Since Professor Miyajima retired in 2019, Professor Nakahara Shunzaburo has taken lead of the class in his stead. However, as they were unable to come to Niigata in 2020 and 2021 for sculpture building, the classes were cancelled.

“Niigata City expressed a desire to hold Wara Art in some way or the other and the university discussed what they could do from afar to help,” Research Assistant Seino recalled. After some consideration, they decided that instead of offering a class, they would allow students to apply to choose the theme and draw up the designs without going to Niigata. “In a typical year, we have 40 students working on this project but with the state of the world at this time, we felt anxious about having many students gather. In the end, ten students participated to create three sculptures.” (Research Assistant Seino)

After some discussion between the students, they decided on “Lucky things that bring vitality to those who see them” as the theme. “Being in the midst of this pandemic, the overall mood in Japan was very bleak. With those circumstances we thought it would be nice if we could hold the festival to brighten the mood and different ideas for lucky things came up.” (Nemoto)

“I wanted to participate in a project cooperating with other departments. Additionally, I wanted to try working with rice straw, a material that I did not have much experience with,” says Takahashi who was a part of the team that created the Ho-oh sculpture. During the design stage, they envisioned and created a model of the creature to have its wings spread as if it was about to fly upwards but the final product turned out a bit different. “When I saw the finished sculpture, the real thing had such power, just like I imagined. It wasn’t exactly how we had designed it as the local people made adjustments as needed to create a truly impressive piece that I think turned out incredibly.” (Takahashi)

Tanabe always admired extra-curricular projects at Musabi so when she learned about the Wara Art Project in a school email she applied. “My team created the daruma and at first we planned to create a typical one. Then, one member of the team told us that the daruma in Niigata are a bit different so we decided instead to create the Sankaku Daruma that is familiar to the people of Niigata. There are such funny-faced daruma in Niigata,” Tanabe remarked, smiling.

“It sounded like it would be fun to make a design from scratch and make a big, three-dimensional artwork,” said Nemoto who participated in Wara Art as part of the Amabie team. “We chose to make a cute Amabie character for our design but we worried about how the expression would turn out in rice straw. When I saw the finished sculpture, I was so glad to see they were able to capture the character’s cuteness.” (Nemoto)

“It is unfortunate that we were unable to go to the venue in-person but I was so grateful that people went to see the sculptures and that it was in the news. We were unable to actually speak with Niigata locals face-to-face but it was a wonderful experience to connect through rice straw,” says Takahashi. The three talked about how they wanted to go to the venue in-person.

Making things is not something that can be done solely in the research lab, but it is something that progresses with cooperation from different people and communication with staff. “The Wara Art Project is a class for the students to experience and learn for themselves what really goes into craftsmanship. We were unable to go to the venue in-person this year but I hope that next time instead of simply sending off a blueprint, the students can form strong relationships with the people who work in the region through gathering rice straw, practicing traditional “toba-ami” weaving, managing the park, and even experiencing rice-farming itself.” (Research Assistant Seino).

Local production supporters helped to create the sculptures

One of the strongest supporters of the making of Wara Art in Niigata’s Nishikan Ward is local sign making business owner, Mr. Uchiyama Seijiro. For the 2nd Wara Art Festival (in 2009) he was asked by the city office to help with the project and was put in charge of making the frames for the sculptures. Every year since then, he has made the wooden frames based on the students’ designs, making adjustments for weight and balance.

In a typical year, the students add the rice straw to the frames themselves but this year, under Mr. Uchiyama’s direction, local residents built the sculptures.

“I was worried about finding enough volunteers to help with the sculptures,” said Mr. Uchiyama, recalling his apprehension. Niigata City Office staff put out the call to local residents and students to gather production supporters but with the pandemic, they had a hard time. That said, with the help of the Silver Human Resources Center, local residents built the works over three weeks.

“The older local people from the Silver Human Resources Center were better than the students at working with the rice straw,” recounts Mr. Uchiyama with a laugh. “Thanks to them, we were able to finish ahead of schedule.” (Mr. Uchiyama)

Kobayashi Sara and Kobayashi Hanae, classmates at the local Maki Minami Elementary School learned about the production supporters when they saw a poster at their school. They applied with their friends, and the four of them took on the challenge of working on the chest and tail of the Ho-oh sculpture, in addition to the bundles that would become the face of the Sankaku Daruma. Hanae’s younger sister, Kanae, even came to help them out each day.

The students’ only experience with rice straw was when they harvested rice from their school’s paddy. “Mr. Uchiyama made it look easy but gathering the straw neatly into bundles was really hard. We were happy to see what we made used in the sculpture,” they said and talked about wanting to apply again next year if there was another call for volunteers.

Takeshita, a Niigata University student, was born in Shizuoka Prefecture. She learned about Wara Art when she came to Niigata but this was the first time she had actually seen it herself. “Rice straw is harder than I thought. I was surprised to see people get cut by the straw, start to bleed, but continue working.” Though interactions were solely via the design sketches due to the pandemic, she said she was happy to have this exchange with another university. “From next year, it would be nice to have direct exchanges with students from Musabi and local high school and middle schools.” (Takeshita)

Currently, Mr. Uchiyama, his younger brother, and his son are the three who guide the production of these works. “If we get more local production supporters who properly understand how to use rice straw and are able to teach others, we would be able to take in various volunteers,” explains Mr. Uchiyama, hopeful for the growth of the community.

Volunteering this year was Takeshita’s first chance to visit Uwasekigata Park. “I was surprised by how incredible the location is. The big wetland and walking path, seasonal flowers, big playground equipment for kids to play on, it’s so spacious and a perfect place to relax and hang out.”

Where Wara Art is heading

The Wara Art Festival was held for the first time in two years without a hitch thanks to the Musabi students, Mr. Uchiyama, and the many volunteers. Over the approximately two months from Sunday, August 29th through Sunday October 31st, 2021 numerous people gathered in Uwasekigata Park. The Wara Art Festival had to adapt to the pandemic. However, this new endeavor makes you feel the potential of opening up so that more people can be involved in this project which has grown in popularity over the last 10-odd years. Wara Art will surely continue to grow and take on the role of not only connecting Niigata City and the students of Musabi, but also bring the community together and carry the local culture into the future.

“Looking back on the 2021 Wara Art Festival” (by Kejima, Nishikan Ward Industry and Tourism Division) It was decided to hold the Wara Art Festival even though the students from Musabi could not come to Niigata, but it was a challenge gathering production supporters so I was honestly worried if the sculptures would be completed. To gather production supporters, we went around to different neighborhoods in the area, including schools from elementary all the way to universities, including the Agricultural College.
We weren’t able to get many volunteers, but some university students and some members of Maki High School’s art club came to help out which allowed us to connect people to Wara Art who never had before.

Wara Art, which was born in Niigata’s Nishikan Ward, is currently spreading not only through Japan, but across the globe. As the place it started, I hope we can make the festival something that even more people can be a part of. I would love to expand on the connections with production supporters that we were able to establish. I would love for them to get involved in a range of other activities outside of sculpture making such as gathering the rice straw and weaving straw in the traditional “toba-ami” method. Also, from this year, we are asking elementary schools in Nishikan Ward if we can have the straw from their school rice paddies. I think children would be more interested if the by-product of something they grew was used in a Wara Art sculpture.