This should appeal to Moo

[Anne]

I'm watching a nifty doco called 'Between the Folds'.

"Investigates the ancient art of origami and talks to a number of contemporary practitioners who are taking the medium to new levels. Includes interviews with artists, mathematicians, scientists and paper makers."

Origami math sounds like heaps of fun. This one math guy likes to teach as much math with origami as he can. Things like geometry, engineering, number theory, abstract geometry, abstract algebra; anything he can and it works.

This other guy is trying to solve and customise protein folding, while another designed a satellite that will unfold once jettisoned in space. Then of course there are just a bunch of artists who do AWESOME things with it xD

Seriously, if you can find it you should watch it. Even I am fascinated by it xD

[Anne]

And continued in my documentary Sunday:

Voices in the Dark

"The epic project, Roses from the Heart, involving the creation of 25,566 embroidered bonnets, one for every convict woman transported to Australia from Great Britain, is documented in this film."

I think I might participate in this, as she is still needing around 12k bonnets as of August '09. This woman, Christina Henri, has selected single adult bonnet pattern of the era and asked people all over the world to make bonnet/s and embroider them with flowers, then send them to her for a piece of art she is making for International Women's Day in honour of the all female convincts that were shipped to Australia and subsequently treated like trash.

www.christinahenri.com.au/index.php?/info/about/

She had done one like it before, with baby bonnets, for 1.1k babies who died while their mothers were incarcerated. It actually made me cry when I saw she had installed them in the shape of a cross on tiny baby-head sized round wooden balls in the old prison grounds.

[Sofia]

That sounds really interesting, the origami one. *did her documentary watching last night*

[Nick]

Whoa o.o It's heartbreaking. Can't believe I never knew about all the female convicts/infants who suffered. For some reason contemporary history/literature tend to make most of the convicts male o.o

[Anne]

Male convicts do get much more attention x.x. According to the documentary it didn't matter if you had a male convict in your family, but if you had a female convict it had to be kept hushed and could even jeopardise family member's chances of getting married o.0

Her website mentions that until recently most historians have just passed the female convicts off as common, well, whores like the stigma of the day suggested and never looked beyond it. Which is also what makes her work even more special. Many women have been making bonnets for their convict ancestors, or choosing a convict from a list of names and then learning about them, so these women sort of... become theirs. It's nice. She also had the bonnets blessed, as many women - particularly those of Irish decent - were heavily religious and often denied access to their faith, even lacking a burial suiting to their beliefs. x.x

[Monkey]

Math-oriented origami is fantastic. They have some student work displayed in school.

I think you should make a bonnet. (x

[Ice]

Origami! <3 Math + origami yields awesomeness. ^_^

Huh. I had no clue. That's pretty interesting!