Sacred Folding: The Origins of Origami | Chapter 1 - Paper before origami

Sacred Folding: The Spiritual Origins of Origami

Post 1/6 : Paper before origami: a rare, pure, and precious material

When we look today at the earliest days of origami, it is easy to judge them with a certain condescension.

We see few models.
Simple forms.
Sometimes almost rudimentary ones.

And so, when faced with these early folds, we might believe that origami was still only in its infancy.

But this modern gaze forgets one essential thing.

What was rare in the past was not only the complexity of the models.

It was the sheet itself.

Today, we take a sheet of paper almost without thinking. We pull it from a pack, fold it, sometimes crumple it, and throw it away if it does not suit us.

But in the earliest days of paper, every sheet was precious.

• It required time.
• Material.
• Craftsmanship.
• A chain of gestures.

So folding a sheet was not an insignificant act.

When a material is rare, every gesture made upon it becomes more solemn.

Folding is no longer simply manipulating.
It means engaging a precious material in an almost irreversible process.

And if the earliest folds seem simple to us, perhaps it is not because they were poor.
Perhaps it is because they were close to the essential.

They remind us of something modern origami sometimes forgets: the depth of a fold does not depend only on its complexity, but on the presence with which it is made.