By Sam Posa

At Granada Hills Charter (GHC), students are always striving to make change in their community by impacting others. However, the responsibilities of fostering newfound leadership can come as a challenge when trying to meet the demands of life outside of school. To relax, GHC students engage in artistic hobbies to balance and develop skills outside of the classroom. For International Baccalaureate (IB) senior Olivia Zhao, folding origami serves as her way to de-stress, alongside inspiring her community. 

Zhao spends her time crafting all kinds of origami, ranging from small animals like frogs and birds to large flower bouquets. In particular, she specializes in creating modular origami in the Japanese style kusudama. Kusudama consists of putting together individual paper units to assemble a three dimensional shape, typically in the form of a sphere. Once she finishes folding a project, she posts the final results on a dedicated Instagram account to her creations. She has amassed over 2,000 followers interested in her intricate designs. 

“I wanted to display my art somewhere,” Zhao said. “I would be folding so many pieces at home and they would pile up on my kitchen counter, so I decided to photograph and post them. [Posting] my art felt like a completion of sorts, it’s very satisfying to see the end result.”  

In what initially began as a fun hobby, Zhao uses her craft to give back to her community. For the past four years, Zhao has organized and volunteered at various STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Magnet) camps hosted at Devonshire Pals during the summer, teaching young students how to craft their own forms of origami, varying from cranes to flowers. 

Aside from guiding young individuals to develop their own artistic skills, Zhao also creates origami as gifts for those important in her life, choosing the type of origami design to align with the person she’s making the gift for. 

“I give a lot of my gifts to my friends and family, based on their personality types,” Zhao said. “For my math teacher, I made a herringbone tessellation, an infinitely repeating math unit that turns inside out.” 

Zhao’s art has been honoring others since the beginning of her origami journey. Zhao started doing origami in 2020 as a way to remember her late grandmother. In Japanese legends, folding 1,000 paper cranes grants the maker a wish. For several days, Zhao and her family were hard at work crafting each individual crane, before finally releasing all 1,000 into the sea as a final honor for Zhao’s grandmother. 

When not addressing her responsibilities as an IB student, origami serves as a sense of therapy for Zhao, allowing her to spend her free time doing the thing she loves after a busy day of classes, Model United Nations leadership meetings, and mental health nonprofit work. 

“For me, origami is a form of de-stressing,” Zhao said. “I fold origami while watching TV shows or listening to true crime podcasts. I even fold origami when walking or talking with friends. Whenever I am really stressed I turn to this art form. Because origami is repeating units, it’s become second nature to me.” 

Zhao’s therapeutic journey with origami demonstrates how the things we love can help ourselves and inspire others around us.