Shanghai University student wins bronze medal in international origami competition

Recently, the list of winners for the ninth International Origami Internet Olympiad (IOIOIX) was announced. Du Jialei, an undergraduate student from Shanghai University, won third place, while the overall Chinese team ranked in second place with a total of 16 medals won by the players.

Photo shows Du Jialei creating a piece of origami artwork. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)

Founded in 2011 by renowned contemporary origami artist Andrey Ermakov, the IOIO is currently the most influential international origami competition, with a total of 803 players from 59 countries around the world participating in this year’s event.

“You can use only a single piece of polygon paper to create an origami work, and no cutting or joining sections of the paper together should be applied during the process. That’s the greatest appeal and also the most difficult part of creating an origami work,” explained Du, who is a student majoring in architecture at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, the fine arts school of Shanghai University based in east China’s Shanghai.

Photo shows an origami artwork created by Du Jialei. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)

Du also noted that it is even more difficult to design an artwork from a single piece of paper, as the paper’s folds need to be planned out very rationally, with this effort requiring a lot of theoretical and mathematical knowledge. This also explains why modern origami has a high threshold for new entrants, with the number of amateurs remaining relatively small. However, this artform is nonetheless attracting an increasing number of young enthusiasts.

The award-winning origami artwork of Du, inspired by the emblem of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, was created by the young man based on a quadrate paper sheet design. The young artist also added a nautilus and a sailing ship, which respectively represent the concepts of creativity and endeavoring for something, among other design features that were added to the main body of the artwork to form a marvelous whole upon completion of the piece.

Photo shows an origami artwork created by Du Jialei. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)

Du started cultivating an interest in origami early on during his childhood. As a college student, Du said architecture and origami are complementary fields, since origami requires a deeper understanding of spatial design, while the architectural courses that he has taken have aroused even more of his interest in origami-inspired architecture, geometry, topology, and materials science.

Photo shows an origami artwork created by Du Jialei. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)

Photo shows an origami artwork created by Du Jialei. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)

Photo shows an origami artwork created by Du Jialei. (Photo courtesy of Shanghai University)