Swarm of Flying Money Origami Locusts by Sipho Mabona

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Appreciation towards Sipho Mabona for providing the following description:

金钱不会诞生想法，相反，经常是想法带来了金钱。– Owen Laughlin

钱，万恶之源。如同蝗虫般席卷全球，拥有圣经般让人折服的魔力。但金钱的本质只是交换物质而已，是干净的。

艺术家Sipho Mabona的折纸装置艺术常常以人，动物—鸟类，鱼类，昆虫灯在公共场所表达出强有力的信息。这组蝗虫金钱以逼真性和冲击性反映了作者的意图：“虽然这是可怕的蝗虫群，但是不要泯灭了希望。这些折成蝗虫的钱，还可以折成别的东西。”这个展览在洛杉矶的日裔美国人博物馆将展览到2012年8月26日。 

“Money never starts an idea. It is always the idea that starts the money.” – Owen Laughlin

Locust is a pejorative term derived from the German “Heuschrecke”[1], which German politician Franz Müntefering (from the social democratic SPD party) created in the context of describing private investors, private equity funds and investment banks. The term has been popularized and is continually used in discussions critical to capitalism in Germany. – Wikipedia, 11.03.2012

Money, our prime signifier of both ambition and perdition. Money has gone from being an elementary medium of exchange to being a means of exploitation: a colossal cloud of hot money [and incomprehensible financial instruments] buzzes above the global economy like a biblical swarm of locust. Thus money as bane. Yet money per se, plain as the one-dollar- bill, always retains its basic ability to function as a pragmatic unit of accounting for goods & services. Hence money as blessing.

Sipho Mabona has recently established himself as the foremost origami installation artist, arranging his folded paper figures of people, animals, birds, fish and insects in galleries and interior public spaces to convey potent social messages.

In his latest installation The Plague, Mabona materializes this threatening yet utterly hypnotic ambivalence of money: the quotidian dollar-bill which accomplishes our daily business begins folding in on itself, gains awesome complexity and takes flight as a foreboding swarm of monetary locusts. It is the concept of transformation that intrigues Mabona: “Although a swarm of locust is frightening, hope carries the day in this piece (name). In Origami, paper is folded into definite forms but these shapes can be unfolded again. The creases will remain but the paper can be folded into something else again. [I enjoy playing with the concept of transience. (Vergaenglichkeit)]”

[Each single specimen was folded from an uncut square of (US) currency sheet and took Mabona 4 to 5 hours to complete. As part of the exhibition FOLDING PAPER: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami the swarm will be on display in the Japanese American National Museum in LA until August 26, 2012.]

Text: Themba Mabona

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