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Japanese Paper Crafts: Kirigami Pepakura
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There are actually quite a number of japanese papercrafts but this time, I will talk and cover on kirigami or kirigami pepakura. The word ‘pepakura’ is a japanese translation of papercrafts written in katakana, while ‘kirigami’ literally means ‘cutting papers’ (‘kiri’ means to cut and ‘kami’ means paper. It is a type of Japanese art that involves a lot of cutting and also folding paper into certain shapes, ornamental objects and designs.
Kirigami is different from origami because it involves cutting to get a certain shape, though it also initially involves a lot of folding techniques as well. But the cuts are usually small and sometimes can be unnoticeable. The japanese art of papercutting technique of another term called mon-kiri. Kirigami is usually used in making shapes of symmetrical objects like snowflakes, flowers and animals. Though recently kirigami has been taken into another stage of producing much more complicated objects that involves a lot of cutting and foldings. Sometimes, it is not as simple as it looks!
Kids definitely love playing with paper
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You can check out more kirigami papercraft from PaperCraft Art Creative and Kanako Yaguchi Kirigami Works (this site is in Japanese)
I think we kids around the world might have learn some basics of kirigami during their early school years. Remember during our art class when we have to cut symmetrical shapes that requires a little folding at first? Yup – that’s kirigami and so we have done some before! ^0^
Author’s note: Thinking of taking it one step higher by making lots of kirigami flowers!
