Cars, rice, and origami: meet the mosaic makers creating art from unusual objects

For almost as long as we’ve had architecture, we’ve had mosaics.

The human desire to make our spaces beautiful started as a simple art form, with local artists decorating their spaces with a small assemblage of coloured stones, glass, or other objects. Although many accessorized spaces were places of significance – like temples or other religious buildings – many mosaics also depicted normal life, with normal actions like hunting, agriculture, or art and performance.

Incredibly, some of these mosaics can be thousands of years old. When scientists unearthed an ancient Mesopotamian temple from the 3rd millennium BCE, they found it covered in a mosaic of stones, shells, and ivory, which were local products at the time used for aesthetic purposes. 

There’s also records of mosaic art developing independently in the Americas from at least 250 CE, from the ancient Mayans.

Nowadays, many people are more familiar with the art form through the elaborate mosaic tiling in ancient Roman cities, or the curvy avant-garde mosaics outside La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, or even mosaics at their most basic – the tiling on subway walls.

But modern artists have transformed our understanding of this traditional art form, and mosaics have increased in size and grandeur over the last millennium, particularly because of what objects we use to make these magnificent pieces.

Because of their size, mosaic making is intrinsically a beautiful art form that requires a team to come together and create. Across the world, we’ve seen record-holders find modern objects that speak to them, and with the power of their communities, they’ve built incredible art with some unusual pieces.

Keep reading to find out more about some of these incredible record-breaking artists, their mosaics, and how (and why!) they chose to complete them with modern items.

Largest doughnut mosaic (logo)

One good doughnut can be life-changing. Over 15,000 freshly-glazed, fluffy doughnuts racked up and pulling up in a semi-truck outside your place? The stuff of dreams. But when Bashas Supermarkets were planning their celebrations for the 90th anniversary on 12 July 2022, they knew they wanted to create something truly memorable for their community, and what better way than to include their signature, made-from-scratch Bismark doughnuts?

Their team decided to reward the popularity of their pastry artists by transforming their doughnuts into physical art – in this case, the largest doughnut mosaic (logo). This goal would more than double the current record, which was at 50 m² (or 538 ft²).  

Their figure, a recreation of their 90th anniversary logo, measures 83.91 m² (903.19 ft²) and was assembled by 60 of their team members across Arizona and New Mexico starting at 3:15 a.m. in Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona, USA.

They officially broke the record title after arranging 14,400 doughnuts into this giant, edible piece of art. And to give thanks to their local communities for their continued support, they donated all of the doughnuts to three local non-profit organizations to distribute back to folks in need.

Largest car mosaic (image)

To welcome the year of the ox in 2021, the team at Geely Emgrand Official Clubs decided to go in a very different direction (and interpretation) of the art for their largest mosaic attempt.

Geely, a car manufacturer based in Zhejiang, China, hosted an event at their factory in Cixi, Zhejiang, where they invited 200 people from their member club to use their Geely Emgrand cars to form the image of a cattle, a symbol of power. They did so to express good will for the coming year and create a collaborative piece of art with their community.

The members certainly showed up – and they created a mosaic that included 750 Geely cars and measured 7,070.26 m² ( 76,103 ft² 92.91 in² ), officially breaking the record title for the largest car mosaic (image).

Largest grain mosaic (logo)

While the team in Zhejiang were using cars to create a mosaic, further south in China, the Guangdong Yuan Hang Distillery group went the opposite direction in terms of scale.

In order to promote the 5th local Rice Friend festival, the team at the distillery rearranged 6 tons worth of miniscule pieces of pearl rice and Indica rice grains in the shape of four Chinese characters – "Jiu Jiang Shuang Zheng" – the registered trademark owned by the company. 

Teams of artists spent hours rearranging the tiny grains onto a large mat outside, after piling the grains into little stacks, and crouching to see close enough to sort them around. The beautiful, but back-breaking, work was rewarded with a Guinness World Records title for largest grain mosaic (logo) for this incredible piece.

Largest tree mosaic (image)

But if you can make a mosaic out of something as small as grains, couldn’t you also make one from something as large (and as long-lasting) as a tree? Well that’s what they said at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, General Directorate of Forestry, in Ankara Çubuk, Türkiye. 

In honour of National Forestation Day in Türkiye on 11 November, the team decided they wanted to do something good for the environment while also making a piece of art. So they planted 452.023 trees across 21,825.74 m² (234,94 ft²) in the shape of the flag of Türkiye to give back to the earth and do something for national pride.

It took the team approximately a week to form and create the mosaic with two different types of trees (Juniperus Sabina and Euonymus Japonica Aurea), and this stunning natural artwork was awarded the Guinness World Records title for largest tree mosaic (image) to honour the holiday.

Largest origami mosaic (flag)

For a more traditional mosaic that still requires an incredible amount of skill, turn to this work by Arbnora Fejza Idrizi and Medreseja 'Alauddin' Prishtine. These artists have worked with origami art for over 10 years and have created hundreds of intricate pieces, and decided to create a public tribute to Albania’s Independence Day in the city centre of Skenderaj, Kosovo. The city is where the Kosovo War began in 1998, and where the most damage was done.

The artists, along with a team of 50 volunteers, created over 120,000 red and black origami pyramids and spent hours arranging them in the shape of Albania’s national flag. By the end, they used 90,424 pieces of origami, and the total pieces measured 1,303.62 m² (14,032 ft²), breaking the record title for largest origami mosaic (flag) in a stunning tribute to the resiliency of their community.

Largest chocolate mosaic

And just to end on a delicious note, the largest chocolate bar mosaic was made in Caracas, Venezuela, by the Fundación Nuestra Tierra at Poliedro de Caracas.

This great beauty was made on 28 September 2017, and is a massive 18.56 m² (199.57 ft 112 in²) – made with 1,635 bars of 60% cocoa chocolate, 80% cocoa chocolate, and white chocolate. These are expert chocolate artists here, having already won the record title for the largest chocolate tasting event that happened in Caracas, Venezuela, on 1 October 2016 and counted with the participation of 419 people.

These good people gave out all the chocolate to the needy after the event, and on the last day of their largest chocolate bar mosaic event, every single chocolate bar was distributed in only 1 hour and 42 minutes.

Header image: Pixabay / Pexels