For thousands of years a small town in Japan has grown lots and lots of rice, but it wasn’t until 1993 that the town turned the rice into public art. Seen as a clever way to draw in tourist revenue, the people of Inakadate started their project with a simple mountain design,but every year their new designs have grown more bold and dramatic from Mona Lisa to characters from Star Wars. Made out of colored rice stalks, which is called Tanbo art, their rice paddy art spans entire fields and takes 1,200 people and $35,000 to create. Although the town has invested in a small 20 meter observation deck in front of the fields, which has attracted 200,000 visitors per year, they have not generated as much tourist revenue as they had hoped. Over the last few years the people of Inakadate have sought out donations to keep their Tanbo art alive.
Tanbo art, Japan
