"A magic kingdom was created and folded by origami artists Yuri and Katrin Shumakov, part of their exhibition on view at the Wang Center Aug. 1-8. "

The North Shore Sun
July 27, 2007, pp 27, 40

No flods barred at Wang

University hosts 3rd annual origami fest

by Rebecca Packard

If your paper-folding skills have never gone beyond making paper airplanes, you can get more perspective on paper's potentioal at Origami Heaven: the third annual origami festival at Stony Brook University....

...on view from Aug. 1 to Aug.8 will be Oriland, an intricate kingdom created from paper, without adhesives or scissors, by Russian-born artistrs Yuri and Katrin Shumakov...

... The festival was originally a one-day convention for experts, with LIFE members also teaching and exhibition origami. Now the event features a more involved convention, more activities for the public, and the internationally-known Shumakovs. They were a natural choice because of their celebrated skills and accessibility, according to Shrikant Iyer, LIFE member and festival organizer.

"In Russia they just had access to regular copying paper," said Mr. Iyer of the Shumakovs. "It kind of brings it down one level of intimidation that they use common materials."

In addition to the display of the Shumakovs' intricate origami world, some of the Shumakovs' instructional CDs will be available for visitors to view on laptops...

"It's said that every part of your brain is ised when you fold paper," said Mr. Iyer. He said katrin Shumakov did her PhD in how the brain processes origami. She found it engages more that spacial intellegence; there are surprising connections to other parts of the brain, such as the relating to the linguistic and social areas.

Overall, Mr. Iyer said he hopes the festival will raise awarness of origami and help people find their own meaning inthe art....