TREVAS CHUANG (Decadent Origamist <higft999@gmail.com>)
KOVID stands for “Kusudama Of Vexatiously Illogical Dreams”
And what is KUSUDAMA:
Kusudama is a combination of two Japanese words Kusuri (Medicine) and Tama (Ball), possibly originally being actual bunches of flowers or herbs where they were used for incense and potpourri to prevent and cure diseases.
It now also refers to a paper model that is usually created by sewing multiple identical pyramidal units together through their points to form a spherical shape.
So why this campaign?
The purpose of this project is to divert our many concerns at this crucial time, may we ALSO recall the spirit of this piece when we refer to ‘Co(ko)-vid’ in the future. This campaign collects positivity around the globe and serves as a wish, wishing it shares an end date with the pandemic.
While it scarred many of us, I personally regard a crisis like this a turnaround, a time for us to rethink and plan for the future.
In the end, I too look forward to the day we see each other, and hug each other again. As the name suggests, I regard current situation as a nightmare that will resolve in no time. Following this idea, the artist prepared a special model dedicated to the Poznań Art Week 2020 art festival:
Here are the 4 phases of my KOVID project
Phase 1. Colliding
Another casual day, just when I was looking for some inspiration for origami, COVID-19 bursted out and became serious. And surely many artists will start making art about it, so is in the origami community. A couple of origamists have already invented spherical models which resemble the shape and color of corona virus, well there goes my first inspiration… anyway I folded one myself, as soon as a friend saw it, she said „This is beautiful ! What is it?” I quickly went searching on the internet and found out this specific type of origami is called „kusudama”.
Phase 2. Coincidence
I digged deeper on Kusudama, initially meant a spherical decoration made from flowers and tree branches, which it was originally from Taoism that people place herbs and medicines in an emptied jape – a symbol of preventing and curing diseases. What a surprise to have found out such ironic/contradictory truth, so this brought me the idea to make a series of Kusudama named „KOVID – 19” which stands for „Kusudama Of Vexatiously Illogical Dreams – 19″
The purpose of this project is then shifted to divert our many concerns at this crucial time, may we ALSO recall the spirit of this piece when we refer to ‘Co(ko)-vid’ in the future. This campaign collects positivity around the globe and serves as a wish, wishing it shares an end date with the pandemic.
While it scarred many of us, I personally regard a crisis like this a turnaround, a time for us to rethink and plan for the future. In the end, I too look forward to the day we see each other, and hug each other again. As the name suggests, I regard current situation as a nightmare that will resolve in no time.
Phase 3. Spreading
I, then started holding kusudama workshops to share this preventive origami model and sharing some kusudama tutorials online for those who could only stay at home to fold. Once they are done with a kusudama, I will upload a picture of the model along with their blessing to the world to a global map where they can find themselves pinned to the city they are living in as well as browsing what others have folded from other corners of the world..
Phase 4. Project in the post-pandemic realm
After these few months, we have come from being afraid of getting affected, learning how to prevent up till now co-existing with the virus. Meanwhile the nature gasps for breath, it is taking the chance to heal from what we’ve damaged, dolphins in Sardinia, Jelly fish in Venice, deers in Nara (Japan), goats in Israel, boars in Spain re-appeared. Our concern isn’t just the end of pandemic, the health of the human race but should it also be to reconsider our way of living and living harmoniously with all species on the planet.
Link – World map: https://uebermaps.com/maps/17360-kusudama-of-vexatiously-illogical-dreams
KOVID project documentary (audio in Chinese, subtitle in english):
