Oh! Origami Exhibit
A thousand colorful paper cranes hang in an orderly rainbow, while intricate three-dimensional figures rest atop various pedestals in the Lamont Gallery. From April 10 to May 14, the gallery will feature an origami exhibit created by the Origami Club.
The origami pieces exhibit painstaking detail. Lower Elizabeth Kostina, co-head of Exeter’s origami club and creator of the project, highlighted the pieces’ structural theme of circles, “because circles historically represent perfection and goodness.” The exhibit’s centerpiece is a 105 piece taurus made out of PHiZZ units by Tom Hope.
Lower Thomas Matheos, a self-proclaimed origami admirer, appreciated the stylistic choices of the exhibit. “I like the peaceful stillness found both in the creases and in the aesthetically pleasing geometric patterns,” Matheos said.
Gallery Manager Stacey Durand appreciated how the exhibit invites more students to pause and admire the artwork. “I really like the colors, and how exciting it is, but how it also gets people to slow down and take a minute,” she said.
The objective of the exhibit is to convey to students that origami is much more than folding paper. Kostina described that her goal was to show “the intersectionality of the medium.”
“There is more mathematics in one piece of origami than one typical year of math class at Exeter.”
Math Instructor Szczesny Kaminsky also spoke to the multi-faceted nature of the art form. “It’s used in high-tech, it’s used in biology, it’s used in space flight,” he said. Kaminsky accredited the solar panel satellite launching to origami-related fundamentals. “[Solar panels] are nicely folded when they are stored in spaceships, based on very sophisticated origami principals. And then they open up to create these big flat surfaces in outer space.”
The exhibit was founded to highlight the complexity of origami, encouraging students to learn more. Kaminsky hopes that because of the exhibit, some students will feel motivated to “go to the store, buy origami paper and start doing it.”
Kostina was inspired by her fall term math class with Kaminsky, which has many modular pieces of origami. “That just sort of started me, looking at the stuff and taking it apart during class,” Kostina said. The Lamont Gallery staff were “happily obliged” to help Kostina, and the group started collecting pieces from different people around campus.
Many other faculty who have an interest in origami also donated some of their most treasured pieces to the cause.
Standardized test exam proctor Philip Mallinson contributed models he and other students have made over the years. “They’re all modular origami, which means that each piece is made up of copies of the same unit,” Mallinson said.
Kaminsky donated a variation of platonic polyhedrons, including a twenty-sided icosahedron and spherical shapes that could be folded into the size of a pencil or a donut. These two pieces each took Kaminsky two days to make.
The creators of the exhibit hope to, if nothing else, educate Exonians on the complexity of origami—that it is more than a means of making a paper crane. “There is more mathematics in one piece of origami than one typical year of math class at Exeter,” Kaminsky said of the art form.
Kostina believes that origami is more than just art, and is grateful that the Lamont Gallery can bring awareness and appreciation to the form.
“Origami is not something that is typically displayed in museums. Origami doesn’t hang up in buildings or stand up on pedestals like paintings or statues,” she said. “It’s sort of out of place. I think this exhibit is something that will throw people off a little bit.”