Special Guests
Pei Haozheng
Pei Haozheng is a Chinese contemporary artist, designer, and researcher, exploring origami for about 20 years. As an artist, he has created many meaningful works, combining sophisticated techniques with humanitarian ideals. His works, for instance, were certified by the Guinness World Records twice and sold at several charity auctions, including the 2023 Yao Foundation Auction and the 2023 Make A Wish Auction, to raise money for disadvantaged children, and exhibited at various museums, outreach events, and symposiums, such as the Nanjing Massacre Museum, the 2022 Boao Youth Conference, and the 2023 International Symposium on Structures and Materials Inspired by Origami. As a designer, he has applied folding techniques to design. For example, he received the 2023 Best Mascot Award from China National Stadium, incorporating folding elements in mascot design. He has also designed several origami-themed TV projects, promoting the art form to a growing audience. As a researcher, he sees origami as a medium that intersects both art and science, which has led to numerous lectures at and collaborations with universities nationwide. He is co-developing an origami-inspired robot with Peking University and curating a Scienceart exhibition of origami. More information is on his wiki page, https://www.wikiwand.com/simple/Pei_Haozheng.
Francesco Mancini
Francesco was born and raised in Tavenna, a small town in the south of Italy, in 1974. He discovered origami about twenty years ago when his best friend showed him Sam Randlett's flapping bird. He already knew some traditional models but that one rekindled his curiosity and gave him the impulse to deepen the knowledge and the possibilities of this art. At the beginning he was a lone folder, then he joined the Centro Diffusione Origami, he began to attend a folding group, and went to the first Italian conventions. Now he is vice president of the CDO, and he is part of the editorial team of Quadrato Magico. Due to a design competition, he started focusing on designing original models. Since he loves geometry his designs are mostly geometric and modular but he also likes action, festive, and simple origami. His diagrams have been published in numerous convention books and origami magazines around the world and has been invited as a special guest in Israel, France, and Germany. In addition to folding, he likes to teach origami and is lucky to be able to do it often, especially with children, in Florence, where he lives now, thanks to his collaboration with the Garden of Archimedes, a Museum of Mathematics where origami is used as a tool for a better and more fun understanding of mathematics.
Featured Guests
Guest information to come soon.