What is Origami?

He continues: “For me the answer can be found in a kind of symbiosis, the coming together of different aspects that make up the whole. My personal definition of origami is as follows:

“Origami is a traditional game of folding paper that unites sculptural esthetic aspects with functional and geometric-mathematical principles”.

Does this fill the bill for you?

“Origami is a form of sculpture in which the primary means of creating the form is folding.”

This definition sets no rules on material, size, shape, cuts (or lack of same), flatness versus 3-dimensionality, but in my opinion, it takes in most things that we call “origami” today, and excludes most things that we don’t
usually think of as “origami.”

And as with any good definition, it provides lots of opportunity to argue over categories near the boundaries!

I think there are some inherent problems with categorizing and defining an art form– inevitably somebody will explore too far and rules will be broken; then the opinions start flying, and the taxonomy falls apart unless it is revised. The only way to avoid this is to use a definition so obscure that it has much less meaning than it otherwise would.

And there’s another problem with defining an art form: art is entirely subjective. In a way, all of these definitions are equally valid, because the person that has submitted them has given their thought and opinion; and in a subjective realm, this is what matters, not the actual content of the definition.

Not to say that the act of sharing our definitions is useless; far from it, I think talking about our ideas is the best thing we can do to stimulate creativity. I’m just pointing out that definitions are far less permanent than we’d like to think.