As part of the 2010 Setouchi Triennale art festival in Japan, Musashino Art University students created this woolly mammoth sculpture completely out of straw. The installation was a collaboration with local farmers, who donated the rice straw after the harvest. The students built the installation directly in those same harvested fields for everyone to enjoy. In addition to the extinct creature, the students also constructed a small hut and a whale at the top of a large hill.
Shortly after the woolly mammoth was completed, a typhoon swept through the area and knocked the piece over. Normally, this destruction would be considered problematic and a mistake that needed to be corrected. But instead, Hong Kong artist Michelle Kuen Suet Fung considered it a reinterpretation of the hairy beast and documented the incident with her photography.
More recently, the spring season of the 2013 Setouchi Triennale has just ended, but you can check out the work on the site and look forward to the summer and fall festival seasons, which will take place later this year.
Musashino Art University website
Michelle Kuen Suet Fung’s website
Setouchi Triennale website
via [Laughing Squid]