Shahram Chaudhry
In class, we discussed games that involved making origami. With that fresh in my head, when I got to jotting alternative ideas for my “underwater” project, making an underwater scene using origami was on the top of my list. Since I had previously used the topic metaphorically, this time I wanted to use the literal meaning of underwater by depicting an underwater scene.
I found a picture online that went well with my idea and printed it – trying to figure out the correct color settings for the printer was quite a challenge though. Then I got to making origami fish and of course, I could not miss including a boat – I mean that’s the first origami that we were taught as children. I have to accept that when I tried to make a boat consciously, I got stuck and couldn’t figure out how to make it. But by solely relying on muscle memory I was able to make an origami boat.
Then it came to deciding the colors of fishes and I wanted to choose meaningful colors. I used blue to represent calmness and tranquility, orange to represent vibrant and enthusiasm, yellow to represent joy and optimism, green to represent growth, harmony and balance and finally red to represent passion, strength and vitality. I kept the boat white to symbolize purity and simplicity. I think these are all the traits of a perfectly balanced system (in this case my underwater ecosystem) but in broader terms the general societal structure and system.