Chennai: Avi Natesan’s love for the Japanese art of origami began as an affair with the class assignments of her elder sister, who was a design student at NIFT, in which Avi lent a hand.
Avi started learning origami, the art of folding paper, when she was in Class 9 through videos and online lessons. And today, with her workshops, this Class 12 student promotes origami not only as an art but a stress reliever.
The 16-year-old takes origami classes at her school in Adyar, where she teaches students of lower grades to make colorful designs and items using paper. “When my sister used to come from college with art assignments, I used to learn origami and help her. It is something I have stuck on to and it also helps me relax,” Avi told DC. It has been three years, since she got into origami and now this teenager while learning 2D and 3D versions of it, looks forward to pursuing a career involving design and Origami.
What strikes people around her is the way she uses it to benefit others. “During the floods in December, in order to ensure that children in our building are distracted from the effect of the calamity, she spent those days teaching them origami,” said her mother, Seema Natesan. She has also conducted classes for an NGO in Mumbai.
