Papercraft: Research

Hello everyone!

Today I will be reviewing the work of Raya Sader Bujana, who made several figures of olympic athletes out of paper. (Photography by Leo Garcia Mendez)

The paper figures must have taken hours upon hours of work. As Ms. Sader Bujana says, each figure contains around 150 pieces and up to 500 separators. From what I can see, these pieces cannot stand by themselves without additional support. This is similar to how a real athlete won't be able to hold a dynamic pose for too long, which makes it that much more accurate. It is like a moment captured in permanent figure. Blink and you will miss it.

Ms. Sader Bujana says that the concept behind this design was to express movement through paper. I say that they have managed to do so perfectly. The figures, although abstract are very realistically posed and shaped, showing the expert level of craftsmanship that Ms. Sader Bujana possesses. The fact that the statues can't stand by themselves adds to that realism of being unable to hold these poses for too long in real life. These figures manage to show movement even when there is none by the way that they are posed. The off balanced legs of "The Gymnast" for example, make it easy for an observer to finish the story and imagine the figure flipping over to the other side. This piece relies heavily on the imagination of the observer and the natural human instinct to want to complete the story. By using something as well known as olympic sports, this becomes easy.

The reason why I chose to review this piece is personal to me. I was a former gymnast who has done competitive gymnastics for 4 years. I would always watch the olympics on TV, hoping to one day be there. This dream never came true, but these figures give me an immense feeling of nostalgia for sports. They are very accurate in the way that they are posed. The poses chosen for each sport are very iconic and recognisable, I can almost imagine myself back in the gym doing that exact same pose. These statues inspire me to create objects that give this feeling to the observer, where imagination is what completes the piece.

Information and photos taken from:

https://www.boredpanda.com/i-made-olympic-athletes-out-of-layered-paper/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/04/paper-olympians-raya-sader-bujana/