A red dragon, a feline deity, dogs and cats cover Tanyapong Jaikham’s rice paddies in northern Thailand, a living tribute in rice plants to flooding that inundated nearby areas in September last year, stranding thousands.
To transform more than 2 hectares of land into the vibrant images, Tanyapong and his team used artificial intelligence to plot and refine the design outlines and GPS to mark precise coordinates for the careful planting of 20kg of rainbow rice seeds.
Tanyapong, who began the work in October last year, chose the dragon and the local four-eared, five-eyed feline deity to mark the Lunar New Year’s end, along with dogs and cats trapped in floodwaters, waiting for help from the flooding of Chiang Rai and other areas in the north of the Southeast Asian nation.
Photo: Reuters
“We designed the dragon to carry away all the negativity, hoping this crisis would soon pass,” Tanyapong said.
Since the paddy art’s launch last month, thousands of visitors, including students, families and locals, have visited, finding inspiration, hope and reflection, he said.
“We couldn’t make a living at all,” farmer Tanet Mala said, reflecting on the flooding. “Everything was like a sea.”
Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
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