Selections from The Rice Field by Haruto Maeda

Maeda on his project:

Traveling in Asia or Africa, my heart warmed to rural scenery, beautiful nature, and tolerance of people in these regions. My connection to these areas was strengthened by my recollection of my boyhood memories of the pastorial scenes of my native Japan etched in my memory. My memories of the sea, forest, waterfalls and rice fields resonated in monochrome. The existence of the rice field, the staff of life to the Japanese, has had a great effect on the scenery, culture and the sense of morality of the Japanese. However, due to unplanned development forced upon many rural areas of Japan, the beauty and history of over 2000 years of rice harvesting is decreasing every year. Fearing the loss in a few years, I hurriedly began to photograph these areas. The scenery is silent, but the power of the photograph can touch people’s mind and make them recognize the importance of the cultural icon of the rice field.

Artist Mia Brownell’s still-life paintings of fruit reference Dutch Old Master paintings while incorporating a very modern understanding of DNA, amino acids, and protein chains. 

She has long been interested in the biotechnology industry and ways in which plants are genetically modified to thrive in the marketplace. “Food is the most profound relationship we have with nature.” says Brownell. “It’s the interaction of our bodies and agriculture.”

These NASA crop circles are part of a new project called Space Farm 7:

In a special outreach titled Space Farm 7, seven of the nation’s top agritourism farms have been selected to celebrate and honor the U.S. space program in collaboration with NASA this fall. Each farm has planted corn mazes that will feature designs celebrating NASA’s achievements and progress in space. An increasingly popular phenomenon of crop circle-type creations, each of the seven corn mazes will open this fall to challenge and delight visitors.

The objective of this outreach project is to expose guests to NASA space exploration and educate children across the United States.  The celebration is very timely as this year NASA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first American in space, the 30th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle mission and the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s deployment in space.