After the last of your cranes arrived by mail, we tallied a stunning 2 million paper cranes from 38 countries and all 50 states—double our last official count of one million. While a portion have been earmarked for a permanent art installation in Japan, we’ve been exploring more creative ways use the cranes and represent the widespread participation in this campaign.

If you’ve seen the moving documentary Waste Land, you know that Vik Muniz is both an artist and humanitarian with a gift for incorporating a multitude of unlikely materials into his photographic process. In Waste Land, he used his art to shed light on the plight of trash pickers in the world’s largest garbage dump in Rio de Janeiro.  He also has a gift for dealing with large scale. What to do with so many cranes?  That’s where Vik came in.    

In July, Vik generously donated his time, vision and his Brooklyn studio team to create a large-scale piece of art from thousands of paper cranes sent from around the world along with wishes of hope and healing.  He even enlisted students from the New York area to help with the creation.  The project caught the attention of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.  Vik’s piece was photographed and turned into a beautiful art poster, for sale now on Students Rebuild. Thanks to Vik’s generosity and volunteer designers, the poster is beautiful and reasonably priced for $30 USD, which includes shipping and handling within the United States.  All proceeds will be donated to Architecture for Humanity to help fund reconstruction in Japan.    

Learn more about Vik Muniz and read his interview on the Students Rebuild Japan blog.

Photos by Anatole Hocek