Between the Folds

"Everything folds." That is one of the many messages this story conveys. In the film Between the Folds we discover that there is more to origami than just folding paper into a crane. It really is an art-form unlike any other and has a lot of truth behind it as well. I personally was intrigued by how much origami can be related to human life.

As humans we always feel the need to change things. Origami is a good analogy to this topic. Rather than other art forms, origami is just a square sheet of paper and that is all that is needed. No scissors, paints, molds, clay, adding to anything or subtracting from anything etc. All you are doing is changing the paper to form something else. And what you change it to does not have to be realistic. The first thing to most that comes to mind when speaking of origami is the paper crane or other animals. But many spectacular artist in the film have shown us that there is more than your typical paper crane. Yes, there is a thing as abstract origami and it truly is wonderful art. One artist believed that it is harder to do something simpler (i.e with smoother lines) than something much more representational. What defines right and wrong; art and not art?

Something that really stuck out in my mind was the discussion of emotion in origami and frankly in other art forms as well. As our techinical skills become more and more highly evolved so does origami. Much more elaborate paper folds can be created, but we lose something in this more high tech process. Too much technique can take away the emotion. It takes away the art-form. I believe this to be a surprising parallel to life. When things become too planned do we lose our spontaniety? Our natural human choas? Focusing too much on work and getting by, we lose the emotion and passion. We lose art. With all this growing knowledge of the world is it possible we need a limit before we are over-run by its effects? Lose our emotional touch with the universe?

An interesting film that surprises you about the art of origami.