Artist Peter Root spent three weeks carving 80 kilograms of potatoes into office buildings, homes and various other structures, using only a knife and a bicycle repair kit. His unique potato city model is called Plot.

Although Plot was created in Istanbul, 33-year-old Peter Root says his creation wasn’t modeled on the Turkish city, but rather influenced my various aspects of the historical city. The artist, who eats potatoes at least once a week, says he chose the popular vegetables because they are available in abundance and are “amazing to work with”. They can be carved, sliced, chopped, drawn into, balanced and dried, Root said. Lucky for him, the artist didn’t have to peel all 80 kg of potatoes, as he decided to leave some of the skin intact, to encourage the growing of shoots.

As you can probably guess, some of the potatoes soften and dry in a few days time, while others dry out and harden. According to Root, the dried ones actually retain all the man-made designs and start to look like unearthed relics of some alien civilization. Luckily, the sprouting green shoots are a fresh element in an artwork made of rotting and dried-out materials.

If the name Peter Root sounds somewhat familiar, it’s because he was the mastermind behind another mindblowing installation we featured here on OC, a while back. It’s name was Ephemicropolis, and it was a modern cityscape made of 100,000 staples.

Also, if you find this kind of city models fascinating, you might want to check out this edible model of Shanghai, made by Chinese artist Song Dong.

Photos copyright of Peter Root

via The Sun