Horrorgami: Folding for Frights
The North Mall Meeting Room was full of paper pumpkins, crows, and bats after a night spent learning to fold various origami figures. Associate Professor of Mathematics Keith Nabb and Adjunct Instructor of Japanese Noriko Donahue led an hour-long session in which many students and families learned the art of origami. The math department teamed up with the Japan Club on Oct. 27 to organize a biannual event to teach origami. The theme for their Oct. 27 meeting was “Horrorgami” in the spirit of Halloween.
This is the third origami workshop they have organized. The first, in October 2021, dealt with functional origami. Last spring they ran a workshop teaching flower origami.
“This is originally Japanese traditional culture, and everybody knows origami in Japan,” Donahue said. She explained that origami can be used in education, especially with its use of geometry, and can be used to introduce people to Japanese culture.
“I grew up just making paper cranes, and just fun things, frogs and houses. But more recently, now that I’m in the field of math, I find that interesting that the two fields are interconnected,” Nabb said.
Participants filled the room and brought over benches and chairs so they could join in from the halls outside. Nabb set up a camera which showed his hands projected onto the screen so that everyone could see the folds he was making. He explained as he went the kinds of bases he was folding, and how they were used in other models. Two of Nabb’s daughters helped, passing out paper to the participants as they needed them.
The Japan Club wants to bring back more events to PVCC so they can be exposed to Japanese culture. In prior years, the club has visited a Japanese garden, attended tea ceremonies, and participated in calligraphy workshops. “I want to share the Japanese culture for more people,” Donahue said.
“Origami is very mathematical. At our first talk, we actually talked about … how there’s a lot of engineering and engineering applications that use origami. It’s used in the medical field, it’s used in space science, different areas. So there’s functional properties; origami is aesthetic and beautiful, but it’s also functional,” Nabb said.
