At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release. The result: razor-sharp images of disturbing beauty—temporary sculptures made visible to the human eye by high-speed photography technology. The porcelain statuette bursting into pieces isn't what really captures the attention; the fascination lies in the genesis of a dynamic figure that replaces the static pose. In contrast to the inertness of the intact kitsch figurines Klimas started out with, the photographs of their destruction possess a powerfully narrative character.

Neapolitan Christmas Nativity figurines on display at “Maestri Ferrigno”, which opened in 1836, at Via San Gregorio Armeno on December 14, 2011 in Naples, Italy. Via San Gregorio Armeno, Christmas Alley as it is known, is considered by many to be the world capital of the Nativity and home to the artisans and merchants who specialize in the art and the craft of the Neapolitan Presepe. Over the Christmas period, more than half a million tourists come to see the shops. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

Tourists take pictures of straw figurines of traditional deities Shennong (R) and Zhang Wulang (L back) during China's National Day Holiday, in Xinhua county, Hunan province, October 4, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

This dyed straw is grown in Ban Dong Saen Suk, Sakon Nakhon province, Thailand on September 28, 2021. Sarawut Intharap, 38, an engineer who capture the image, said: “The straw is entwined together to make mats used for sleeping and eating and they are sold at around £2.50 (3.40 USD) a mat at the local market”. (Photo by Sarawut Intarob/Solent News)

A worker paints a santon, the typical figurines from Provence, at the Marcel Carbonel's Santon factory in Marseille, November 28, 2016. Santons are traditional hand-colored figurines usually set in Christmas Nativity scenes. (Photo by Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters)

Catholic faithfuls hold figurines of baby Jesus during a religious procession on Holy Innocents Day in Antiguo Cuscatlan, El Salvador, December 28, 2016. (Photo by Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

Students take photos with a giant King Kong sculptures made out straw in the northern Thai province of Chiang Mai on April 3, 2019. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)