Origami Exhibition in Moscow

The 4th Feast of Origami exhibition, which opened in Moscow's Darwin Museum on Monday, has the purpose of acquainting visitors with the history of the famous paper art. It is not the first origami display at the museum, but it is the first one to demonstrate the decorative capacities of origami as a unique technology used to adorn rooms for a holiday.

The art of making birds, animals and other figures out of ordinary sheets of paper, origami originates from Japan, where paper figures accompanied one in all kinds of ceremonies ranging from weddings to funeral processions. The tradition still lives on in the country of the Rising Sun.

"We ventured to convince the visitors that origami does not always mean Japan," declared Nina Ostrun, Director of the International Origami Museum. Specialists were engaged in a research of every possible origin of the paper art, she said.

In fact, similar technologies have existed in various parts of the world for many centuries. Medieval Spain knew an art of folding fabric into the mitre, the head-dress of the Catholics, without using threads and needles. The famous bird Pajarita, too, is a Spanish invention. Knowing that origami is an art of transforming the plane, one can say antique or Indian clothing, as well as wicker items loved by so many nations, are a kind of Origami too, said the International Museum director.

The exhibition displays the way the tradition of folding any flat surface, be it paper or the latest high-tech materials, revealed itself in the world culture. Used in various forms of human activity, these skills opened up new vistas in the spheres of clothes and packing production, architecture, and even space exploration.

Part of the exhibition features a large collection of traditional works of the Korean paper art by Im Song Mi, the President of the Russian-Korean Cultural Center, which were never exhibited in Russia before.

Yelena Titarenko, RIAN