sipho mabona folds life-sized elephant from single paper sheet

sipho mabona folds life-sized elephant from single paper sheet
(above) image courtesy of philipp schmidli

switzerland-based origami artist sipho mabona has taken the ancient folding technique to a new extreme, crafting a full-scale elephant using just a single sheet of paper. using one slice of white paper measuring 15 by 15 meters (50 by 50 feet), mabona has formed the volume of the ‘white elephant’, which stands more than 3 meters (10 feet) tall. feeding footage to an online live video stream, the event in itself is performance-like, as the massive mammal slowly takes shape from a 2-dimentional surface. simultaneously quiet and powerful, the towering creature proves, as the artist himself says, ‘there is no limit in origami’. ‘white elephant’ is currently on exhibit at KKLB, switzerland.

the life-sized paper elephant
image courtesy of philipp schmidli

details of the elephant’s tail
image courtesy of philipp schmidli

intricate paper folds
image courtesy of philipp schmidli

an original paper model of ‘white elephant’

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