Last time, I did an experiment with sun printing or cyanotype. I also decided to do a similar thing through origami and focus again on political symbols or sometimes also possible political symbols for certain cultures. This time I tried to find some origami patterns that matched the ideas of the symbols I had and tried them out. I even inspired my mom to join me and also try out origami again, which was a really nice activity to do together. So I hope that something similar also happened for all of you with your experiments, because activities like this can bring people together, similarly as activism can bring people together.
Firstly, I focused on doing a few different foods that came to mind and in the end most of them turned out to be fruit. The only different one was again the corn, in this case blue corn, since this type of corn is supposed to refer to Native Americans again (similar to my last post) that faced and are still facing a lot of injustice. I like that the scale pattern of the origami paper that I chose perfectly matches the structure of corn and makes it look even better through this.
Secondly, I did a watermelon, or tried to do one anyways, for this project it was much harder to find the right paper, since I didn’t have the right pinkish colour in my repertoire, so I chose a more purple one that at least had the structure of some of the kernels. Again, as already mentioned a few times the watermelon stands for Palestine.
Thirdly, I decided to do an orange, again as a symbol for Palestine, because I remembered that there is a book called “Oranges from Jaffa”, which discusses the issues that Palestine had and still has with Israel.
Fourthly, I made something that is difficult to distinguish, it should be three plantains, but they look more like bananas, if one can even identify them. I think those are more difficult to put to a certain country or culture, since many African countries and cultures use them a lot and identify with them. I only really have experiences with Ghanaian culture, so, therefore, I would attribute it to them, at least for the moment. I’m always also happy to change my mind and learn something new and better about them.
Fifthly, my mom made an apple. I actually wanted a pomegranate, but apparently there are not really any patterns that are not 3D. The pomegranate would’ve stood for Iran, but I didn’t manage to make one in the end. I don’t know if the apple can work as a symbol for a certain culture, since many cultures cultivated the apple, so at the moment I don’t have an answer for that. In the following picture you can see how it went. I forgot to take process pictures, so I can just show you my final result.
