Hundreds of red poles, topped with bright mask-like sculptures, blend in with Bali'€™s rice field.

A different kind of crop is now sprouting up in the rice fields of Ubud, Bali.

The mysterious appearance of hundreds of red poles, topped with bright mask-like sculptures, has piqued the interest of residents and tourists alike.

During the day, the artwork blends in with the tones of surrounding crops and red-tiled rooftops, while at night the pieces are lit up to stand out sharply against the dark fields. The humid air rings with the incessant calls of insects and frogs, and the masks seem to emit an eerie glow.

This colorful rice-field artwork is the latest installment of Japanese artist Setsu Suzuki'€™s ongoing Taue Project.  

Over the past seven years, the artist has created similar installations in four rice-field locations throughout Japan (Yachiyo, Inzai, Tokamachi and Ishioka), as well as in Jheneidah, Bangladesh (2010) and Santiniketan, India (2011).

Born in 1953, Suzuki has long been interested in the question of '€œwhat is sculpture?'€ and how to engage with problems and relationships between reality and art, between art and the earth and between the earth and human beings.  

The Taue Project, like much of his artwork, continues to grapple with such questions.

Since the beginning of the project, Suzuki has created thousands of these red poles and yellow masks, which he calls rakan. Each rakan is crafted by hand and is intended to represent connections between people and rice, as well as broader relationships between regions.

When he first began this project seven years ago, outdoor art installations were not common in Japan, so he met with a certain amount of resistance and misunderstanding. Now, he is slowly finding more support and appreciation for his pioneering work, both in Japan and abroad.

'€œI am interested in searching for a kind of original Japanese sculpture, and Asian sculpture more generally. In Japan today, much modern Japanese art is influenced by or imported from Europe, and there is very little feeling or connection,'€ Suzuki explained on the origins and meanings of the Taue Project.

His preoccupation with landscapes and rice fields is inspired by a trip home to his rural village from Tokyo many years ago, when the sight of rice moving in the wind prompted him to re-engage with his spiritual identity.

'€œFor me, original culture is nature,'€ he explains, '€œthe rice field is a spiritual environment, one that is intimately connected to the body. For most Asians, the body is made from rice.'€

Suzuki is fascinated by the connections, continuities and resonance between different countries.  

He describes how his project was well understood and accepted by local residents of Ubud, perhaps because Indonesia, like Japan, has a '€œmask culture'€ with traditional arts like topeng (mask) widespread in Java and Bali.

Setsu Suzuki.
He also emphasizes that during his journeys through India, Bangladesh, Japan and Indonesia he has encountered similar kinds of spirituality, cosmology and understandings of the human life cycle.

Apart from discussing his own work, the artist is also keen to find out more about local Indonesian histories, traditions and languages.  

He enquires curiously about traditional Balinese and Javanese writing scripts and suggests we keep in touch to continue learning from one another.

Suzuki hopes to keep bringing his Taue Project into new environments.  He plans to hold his next installation in Nepal, in the mountainous rice-fields of the Himalayas.  He is particularly excited about the Nepal journey, the place where Buddhism was born.

Buddhist philosophy is one of the guiding principles of Suzuki'€™s work, which promotes peaceful relationships between different people as well as between people and nature.

'€œThere are three '€˜P'€™s that are important in life,'€ he says, reflecting further upon his life philosophy. '€œPower, passion and patience.'€

As an observer, sitting in the peaceful Ubud evening, gazing out over the illuminated rice field of rakan and listening to the sounds of the night, it is easy to share in the artist'€™s feelings of spiritual connectedness with the world.