To Demonstrate Origami

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31004, 9 March 1966, Page 2

To Demonstrate Origami

Origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into realistic shapes, will be demonstrated in Christchurch next week by an expert. He is Mr Akira Yoshizawa, president of the International Origami Research Institute. Using one or two pieces of paper, with no cutting or glueing, Mr Yoshizawa can create replicas of flowers, animals and even men and women with personal characteristics. He has been working with Origami in Japan for 50 years and has modernised it by adopting irregular folds and evolving a graceful art. Paper folding can be traced back for more than a thousand years. The traditional way of folding, however, was mechanical and regular, making the works unrealistic and lifeless. Mr Yoshizawa says Origami gives the pleasure of creating beautiful things and hopes the art will “help foster peaceful understanding.” The master of origami is on a goodwill tour of New Zealand, arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affaire, Tokyo. Demonstrations have been arranged by the Japan Society of Canterbury to be held at the Christchurch Teachers’ College in the afternoon and evening of March 14 and at the School for the Deaf, Sumner, on March 15. All his demonstrations are free. In other parts of New Zealand Mr Yoshizawa has been giving demonstrations to handicapped persons and hospital patients, occupational therapists, art students and teacher trainees. He is accompanied on the tour by his wife, who is also an exponent of Origami.