So you can fashion a piece of loose leaf into a paper crane? Snore. Behold the skills of Jiangmei Wu, who turns single sheets of Tyvek into incredibly intricate sculptures that glow from within.
Wu’s Folded Light Art is the result of an impressive mix of old and new techniques; she designs patterns using Illustrator and AutoCAD that are then digitally creased by a vinyl cutter. She uses traditional tools — aka her hands — to construct the forms, which are finally illuminated with LEDs.
Wu became interested in the idea of giving found slips of paper new life as a kid growing up in China in the 1970s, turning scraps and prints into geometric playthings. But she developed her passion while studying at Tongji University’s College of Architecture and Urban Design and Planning in Shanghai.
Her studies there introduced her to the “material exercises” of Bauhaus master Josef Albers, who challenged his students to understand construction by manipulating super-modest media like newsprint, wire, and kitchen matches.
You can see her skills in the vid below, which shows a modular piece coming together.
It’s enough to make me want to make an aeroplane out of the holiday junk mail that’s piling up on my desk. [MoCo Loco]