Planted art: Japan rice field work marks Tokyo Olympics

Planted art: Japan rice field work marks Tokyo Olympics

From the ground, there’s not much to distinguish the rice stalks in a field in Japan’s Gyoda. It’s only seen from above that a massive artwork marking the Olympics emerges. The huge, living installation features iconic Japanese images: the famous wave and Mount Fuji of Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock print and a Kabuki actor in striking facepaint, similar to one that featured at the Olympic opening ceremony. The images are part of a yearly tradition started by the town of Gyoda in Saitama, north of Tokyo, in 2008 in a bid to bring in tourists. In 2015, they even scooped a Guinness World Record for creating the world’s largest rice field artwork: 28,000 square meters.

Each year, a committee comes up with a new design and hundreds of volunteers plant differently coloured varieties of rice to produce spectacular images that can be viewed from a nearby observatory. A design is selected early in the year, with planting happening around May. In 2019, the theme honored the Rugby World Cup, hosted by Japan. This year’s image was intended to highlight Japan’s cultural heritage, on the assumption that crowds of foreign visitors would be in the country for the Games.

“We wanted to show the