Minsi. Chen
Magickarps Paper Origami As the Japanese fable goes, a carp who managed to swim against the current in order to jump over the heavenly gate was granted its one and only desire—to be transformed into a dragon. This work is an allegory for the process of change and transformation. When we push through our mental and physical boundaries there is always chaos and confusion before the eventual moment of clarity. The process of folding these origami carp was, in the beginning, a daunting task. Each Koi is made of approximately 350 scales, each made from a single piece of 96" x 96" square craft paper. For the artist, it became a meditative exercise. The fish “swim” upside-down, against conventional wisdom, through an SMU security gantry which symbolizes every student’s own “heavenly” gate. |
CHEN Minsi is a sophomore at the School of Social Sciences in SMU. She has been doing paper origami since she was 6, and her scaled Koi artwork is a challenge she embarked on and successfully completed, after 3 months of studying crease patterns.