cup of red: rice field art

the people of Inakadate, Japan has a tradition where they grow four types of rice on their paddies into a large works of art. the idea sprung up in 1993 as a project to revitalize the community. from then on, they have done rice reproductions of the works of famous artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and even Leonardo de Vinci. each year, the team of artists and farmers determine which artwork they want to reproduce and recreate a digital image of it in dots. the dots are the precise location of the crops and the type that should be planted on the rice field. like photograph, increased amount of dots (or crops) equate to increased resolution. the dots are then transformed into different coloured reed sticks that reflect which species of rice plant to plant on that spot. in May, 700 volunteers participate in this extravagant project, planting the seed of art. the four types of rice they use are ki ine (yellow rice, yellow plant), murasaki ine (purple rice, brown plant), Beni Miyako (Red Miyako) and Tsugaru Roman (green plant). in July, one can climb up to a 22-meter-high mock castle tower overlooking the paddies to enjoy the rice creations. however, there's also 600 to 700 hundred visitors to fight with every weekend for the view. this is truely the English crop circle taken to a whole new level.