On December 8th, PBS’s Independent Lens will air Between the Folds, a film that chronicles ten fine artists and theoretical scientists who have forged unconventional lives – often abandoning careers – practicing the unlikely medium of origami. They use paper-folding to explore new ideas about science, mathematics and creativity. Judging from the trailer, the film is about a great deal more than this simple description and worth marking on your calendar. Writes Director, Vanessa Gould:

“At its heart, Between the Folds is a film about potential. The potential of an uncut paper square. The potential of a wild scientific idea. The potential to see things differently...

… this has also been a project about transformation – not only of paper squares, but of people and lives also. Most of those featured in the film left traditional lives to devote themselves to the thing they love most – paperfolding: the magical process of transforming two dimensions into three dimensions.”

The film’s website encourages discovery. Click on any of the artists listed and you’ll jump into an alt-view of origami, like Erik Demaine‘s beautiful “Computational Origami“; its curved paper structure has its roots in the Bauhaus and Josef Albers paper studies…

…or Chris K. Palmer’s Shadowfolds...

…Or Robert J. Lang‘s explorations using origami in airbag deployment…

To try your hand at origami, here are instructions for wonderful dollar bill dresses on Christine Edison’s blog…

… which is full of hidden treasures (poke around “select a category”)..

.

Here’s an amazing list of resources for online origami diagrams.

Buy Between the Folds here.

via BoingBoing