AMNH 🏛️ Origami 🎄Holiday Tree

🎄Origami Holiday Tree 🎄

American Museum of Natural History

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November 20, 2023 🏛️  January 15, 2024

An annual tradition, the delightfully decorated Origami Holiday Tree has marked the start of the holiday season at the Museum for more than 30 years.

The tree is decorated with handmade origami models inspired by items in the permanent halls, current exhibitions, and Museum collections. Volunteers began folding in March to complete the hundreds of creations displayed on the tree.

During the holiday season, knowledgeable volunteers will be on hand to teach visitors of all ages the art of origami folding.

Origami Holiday Tree
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On the morning of Monday, November 21, the Origami Holiday Tree was lit in the first-floor Grand Gallery by the 77th Street exit. The display pays tribute to some of the Museum's "biggest and best" displays, with ornaments that include a blue whale, highlights from The World's Largest Dinosaurs, and a space shuttle as a nod to the Museum's latest special exhibition, Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration.

Celebrating sheer size and scope, these origami models represent some of the largest natural and cultural exhibits on display throughout the Museum. 

Watch the video or see  a few of the ornaments.

Credits: Photography: Andrew Cribb

Music: Josh Rutner Quintet

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The Origami Holiday Tree

• November 21, 2022 — January 16, 2023
• The theme of this year’s 13-foot tree is Beautiful Bugs, featuring specially created models inspired by the upcoming Susan and Peter J. Solomon Family Insectarium opening in Winter 2023 as part of the Museum’s new Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation.
  

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Visit the American Museum of Natural History this holiday season to see one of New York’s most beloved displays, the Origami Holiday Tree—an annual tradition for more than forty years. Produced in partnership with OrigamiUSA, the tree is delightfully decorated with more than 800 hand-folded paper models created by local, national, and international origami artists.
Feeling crafty? Volunteers from OrigamiUSA will be on hand at the Museum to teach paper folding to visitors of all ages.

The Origami Holiday Tree is a beloved annual Tradition at the Museum. AMNH/D. Finnin

One 13-Foot Tree, 1,000 Origami Models: 

A Spectacular Museum Tradition

Early each year, as the days begin to get a bit longer and the first signs of spring crop up in Central Park, Ros Joyce and Talo Kawasaki, volunteers from OrigamiUSA and the designers of the Museum’s Origami Holiday Tree start planning for the year ahead.
They begin combing the Museum’s halls in search of inspiration—going from floor to floor to decide on a perfect theme and to find just the right exhibits to re-create as origami models on the tree.
Precedent is no limit: “Often,” says Joyce, “we see something in the Museum that we want on the tree that has never been folded, so we have to design a model and find a way to fold it.”
With a theme in place, in April the team is ready for action. Lists of models are compiled, paper of many colors and textures is purchased, and volunteers—both children and adults—are enlisted from all over the world and as far away as Japan to fold the intricately complex models—some of which can take days or even weeks to perfect. Eventually, the volunteers create hundreds of new models.
After months of folding, in late September the origami pieces begin arriving at the Museum, where the nonprofit OrigamiUSA is housed, just in time for Joyce and Kawasaki to sift through the archives to see which additional models they will need to fill out the tree. The Origami Holiday Tree has been a feature of the Museum’s winter season for more than 40 years; with more than four decades of origami neatly stashed in ten large boxes there is no shortage to the selection.

Some of the highlights include a forty-year-old model of a pterosaur, an extinct vertebrate that was the first to evolve powered flight folded for one of the first origami trees in the early 1970s; a ferocious saber-tooth tiger, and a giant star mobile made up of more than 30 smaller pieces that decorates the top of the tree.
Once the model selections have been made Joyce and Kawasaki begin finalizing the arrangement and their sketches for the tree. “Ultimately we look at the color, size, and texture,” Joyce explains. “We sketch to see how the models are going to fit together to give the tree depth and shape.”

With the final decisions made, after nearly a year of preparation, Joyce, Kawasaki, and the team have only four days to decorate the 13-foot tree before the crowds begin lining up the Monday before Thanksgiving. “It’s a long process but it’s a labor of love,” Joyce says. “In the end it’s all worth it to see the kids and adults light up when they see the tree year after year.”
https://www.amnh.org/explore/origami-at-the-museum/origami-holiday-tree/the-making-of-the-origami-holiday-tree

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Origami Holiday Tree 2016
Interview w/ Co-Designer & Tour:
Museum of Natural History NYC
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1. https://www.amnh.org/explore/origami-at-the-museum
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3. https://www.amnh.org/explore/origami-at-the-museum/origami-holiday-tree
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5. https://www.amnh.org/calendar/origami-holiday-tree

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