Take one look at Japanese artist Takanori Aiba’s tiny kingdom sculptures, where entire miniature communities are built around bonsai trees, and you’ll feel like Gulliver stepping foot on the imaginary land of Lilliput.
The Japanese art of bonsai is a painstaking, meticulous process using cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation and grafting to produce small trees contained in little pots, which mimic the shape and style of mature, full-sized trees.
The artist has not only perfected this technique of miniaturisation, but also added scale models of windmills, lighthouses, boats, cars, statues, cliffs, beaches, flags, lampposts and even the Michelin Man to create three-dimensional dream island resorts featuring miniature villages.
He has combined bonsai with Lilliputian architecture, and his creations teem with activity, amazing stories and unique characters.
Dream…
