These are the people who will be presenting classes during FoldFest Spring 2022!
Jason Ku
Dr Jason Ku is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore, and has been designing and researching origami for over 20 years. While studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he served as President of MIT's origami club, OrigaMIT, for eight years. He has served on OrigamiUSA's Board of Directors continuously since 2011, acting as Treasurer from 2015-2019 and Chair from 2019 to the present.
riccardo Foschi
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/riccardo.foschi2
He is a research fellow, tutor, and adjunct professor at the University of Bologna. Ph.D. in 2019 in architectural representation with a thesis on the parametric modeling of origami applied to architecture.
His research focuses are in the fields of digital representation for Archviz, VR, Nurbs and Mesh modeling for architecture and product design, architectural survey, computational parametric and algorithmic modeling, folded surfaces modeling for applied origami, digital reconstruction of unbuilt or lost cultural heritage.
Himanshu Agrawal
Folding since 1989. My sculptures have been displayed at art shows and events around the world. Besides conceptual installations, I have designed Origami for marketing across online, print, TV advertising campaigns and visual merchandising. Teaching Origami is a soothing activity and I have passionately shared it with thousands of enthusiasts all over the world, interacting with people of all ages and interests; the convalescing and, even the terminal. From folding paper in isolation to folding with a global community; from folding palm-sized models in a small room to folding a 105 ft (32m) dinosaur in an airplane hangar, it’s been a long, eventful and thoroughly enjoyable journey with Origami.
Ilan Garibi
Ilan Garibi is an origami artist who practices almost all aspects of origami. He folds not only paper, but metal, wood, and even glass into lamps, tables, and jewelry. He is the head of Origamisrael, published eight books on origami and puzzles, and teaches origami for designers at Holon Institute of Technology.
Ilan organizes and runs the annual Joisel Award. In 2020 he created Origami & Beyond, a company that organizes events around the world, introducing the Origami World Marathon (OWM), The Geometric Origami Convention (GOC), and the Practical, Puzzle, Play Origami Convention (P3OC).
Tom Hull
Tom Hull is a mathematics professor at Western New England University (in Springfield, MA) who specializes in the math of origami. He is also known for inventing the PHiZZ Unit, the Five Intersecting Tetrahedra model, co-authoring two books, Origami, Plain and Simple (with Bob Neale) and Russian Origami (with Sergei Afonkin), and making scrumptious chocolate chip cookies. Two origami-math books he's written are Project Origami (2012) and Origametry (2020).
Meenakshi Mukerji
When Meenakshi Mukerji was introduced to modular origami, her passion for the art rekindled, and she began designing and displaying on her website. In 2005, OrigamiUSA presented her with the Florence Temko award. In 2007, her first book, Marvelous Modular Origami, was published, followed quickly by six more books. She has been a special guest at several origami conventions and contributes regularly to magazines. Though known for modulars, she designs single sheet origami as well. Born and raised in India, she has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Computer Science (USA). After a 15-year software career, she stayed home in CA devoting time to family, travel, origami design, authoring origami books and spreading the joy of origami.
Nobuko Okabe
Nobuko was born and grew up in Tokyo, Japan and currently lives in New Jersey, USA. She started teaching origami in her children's schools and local libraries about 20 years ago and got into designing her own models about 10 years ago, Her interests are mainly in modular models with simple and versatile units that can form various 2D and 3D models. So far she has published one book "Modular Origami with Super Nobu Unit" with the recommendation from Tomoko Fuse.
Oriol Esteve
Oriol Esteve (Barcelona, 1972) is a member of the AEP (Spanish Origami Association), the CDO (Italian Origami Association) and the OAS group (Origami Always Succeed) , specialized on quick origami designs. His favourite subject is slightly cartoonish animals, but keeping an essential approach.
He is the author of two origami books, edited by Nicolas Terry: "Stop Thinking, Start Folding" (2018) and "Fold with the Flow" (2020). Lately, He has become deeply interested in designing models with a very direct folding process.
Special guest in the OrigaMIT (2018), Bogotá, Lyon and Sevilla (2019). With the OAS group, in 2019, He was also invited to the Israel Convention and the Peacoc Portland Convention.
Madonna Yoder
https://training.gatheringfolds.com
Madonna's mission is to help folders see that tessellations don't have to be scary. In fact, they can be as simple as putting together Lego blocks once you master the underlying skills and patterns!
She teaches her Building Blocks Method in courses at all levels, from gridding to twists to tilings to advanced techniques, through live and recorded online workshops and 1-on-1 tutoring under the name Gathering Folds.
This lecture will focus on the big picture of tessellations - what symmetry patterns are commonly used, what kinds of folds fit into those symmetry patterns, and a taste of the choices that can be made inside of these constraints.
Brandon Wong
https://web.mit.edu/wongb/www/origami/index.html
Brandon Wong is an MIT undergraduate majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in Japanese, originally from the California bay area. His origami designs are high complexity representational figures, mostly humans and animals. He uses a broad variety of technical design styles: axial and non-uniaxial box pleating and hex pleating, 22.5, and tilted grid, and enjoys designing models that feature multiple figures from the same sheet.
Joseph Wu
Vancouver-based artist Joseph Wu encountered origami at the age of three. He has attended conferences, taught classes, given lectures, and exhibited works around the world.
Joseph’s work has been shown internationally, including a recent exhibit at the Chi Mei Museum in Taiwan. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, O Magazine, the New York Times, etc. His clients have included Stolichnaya Vodka, Intel and Air Canada, and he has produced art for such TV shows and movies as Fringe and Underworld 4.
Joseph designed, built and installed a 180-foot long origami light sculpture for Botanist restaurant at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel. His collaboration with Tangible Interaction, “Jelly Swarm” appears each winter at the Vancouver Aquarium.
Jun Mitani
https://mitani.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp/en/
A professor of Information and Systems at University of Tsukuba, Japan. Research interests center on computer graphics and geometric modeling techniques. Visited eight Asian countries as a cultural exchange envoy through origami in 2019. The main origami works are characterized by having curved folds.
Main publications include "3D Origami Art (CRC Press)" and "Curved Origami Design (CRC Press)".
Marcio Noguchi
Author and diagrammer of several books.
Past board member and board-chair of OrigamiUSA.
Member of Japan Origami Academic Society (JOAS) Tanteidan magazine editorial team, and lead for the English digest.
Board member of Japan Origami Academic Society (JOAS) since 2018
Kei Morisue
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC9E72gf1nLL0f3hFY9KtSg
Kei Morisue is one of those designers whose designs have defining features. While many designers focus on cramming as many flaps as possible in a single sheet of paper, Morisue instead paid more attention in implementing and utilising flat spaces, which allowed him to approach many previously under-explored subjects. Most of his designs can be grouped into two different categories. The first one is pictures created by colour-change patterning, in which both sides of the paper are used to 'draw' patterns on the flat space, as in the Sierpinski Gasket L5 and the Copyright Sign. The other type is models with heavy manipulation of wide spaces to create a sense of width, as can be seen in the White Hare of Inaba and the TIE Fighter.
Gen Hagiwara
Born in Tokyo in 1990. Lived in Australia for teen and youth time.
Grew up folding the works of Master Akira Yoshizawa and Kunihiko Kasahara and began designing my own models in my junior high schooldays.
Main subject is animals. Trying to create works that capture the movement and charm of the subject rather than realism.
Author of "Spirits of Origami" (Origami-shop.com) and "Origami Works of Gen Hagiwara" (Origami House).
Won Park
http://orudorumagi11.deviantart.com/gallery/
Won Park is an Origami artist who specializes in folding currency. He mainly works with the U.S. dollar bill. His work has been featured in numerous magazine publications and has also been used as cover art for book publications. Won Park has also published his own books that show you how to fold his amazing creations. He now resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Krystyna Burczyk
With a graduation in mathematics her interests are centered on geometric art, origami and educational applications.
She is an author of books and brochures on origami, a lecturer in conferences on theoretical and educational aspects of origami.
She has taken part in several art exhibitions including ‘Masters of Origami’ (2005), and ‘Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami’ (2012 16), and ‘Mujeres de Papel’ (2016-17), several art exhibitions of Bridges Conference, as well as individual exhibitions ‘Papel, Dobragens e … Matemática’ at the University of Lisbon (2018), and ‘Entre o Papel e a Matemática’ at the University of Aveiro (2019).
Ali Bahmani
Ali Bahmani is an origami artist/instructor based in Dubai who grew up his childhood in Japan.
He likes simplicity and appreciates simple and elegant origami models, especially geometrical ones. Most of his designs have geometric structure with certain design and aesthetic qualities in the final result
Ali is host of Origami Talk Project (www.origamitalk.org), a weekly live chat with origami artists where they share about their personal journey, artworks, creative process, quarantine and much more!
In 2016 Ali Co-founded a voluntary group called Omid-Origami and traveled to Tohoku in Japan to hold a series of origami workshops and teach origami to childrens who were struck by tsunami as a disaster relief and caring for children program.
Marc Kirschenbaum
Marc has been a folding artist since the 1970's, specializing in figurative works. His pieces have been shown in many museums and shows around the world, including the American Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian, Mingei International Museum, and Hangar-7. He has also had his works published in many books and periodicals. Marc is also an active member of OrigamiUSA, where he is currently on the Board of Directors, and manages the production of many of this organization’s publications.
Pan Hang
https://twitter.com/origamiwind
Pan Hang is an origami enthusiast who has participated in many public origami activities. He hosted and organized two international origami conventions in Wuzhen, China in 2018 and 2019, as well as two virtual origami conventions in 2020 and 2021. He hopes to teach people more about origami and help them find their own origami inspiration.