For Naoki Onogawa, folded cranes represent memories of his grandmother. When he was young, they would play traditional games like Ohajiki or Cat’s Cradle, but he was especially captivated by the many origami they made together.

Familiar as Onogawa was with Origami since childhood, it became his canvas for self-expression; the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake pushed him to create works like the ones you see today.

He traveled to Iwate Prefecture the year after the calamity, to the city of Rikuzentakata. As he witnessed the actual situation and listened to the locals’ stories, he was struck by the horror of nature - a raging force that humanity can't abate, regardless of race, gender, or social standing. At the same time, he also accepted the strength required to stay alive, and how it shines in the face of disaster. Throughout history, people have always coexisted, basking in the fruit of their labors and facing natural disasters together in equal measure. It was that experience that opened his eyes to the need to “live in the present.”

While in Rikuzentakata, Onogawa found a Senbazuru - 1000 paper cranes tied together with string - lying on the rubble of a school that was washed away by the tsunami. To him, the strand of paper birds was like a lonesome ritual; people with nowhere left to go left their prayers upon their paper wings, to whisk them away into a world beyond their own.

Prayers entrusted to orizuru wings. So they were, and so the first of his oeuvres, “Tsuru-no-ki,” or “The Crane Tree,” was born. Onogawa worked over ten hours every day, eventually pasting 10,000 orizuru “leaves.” The piece creates a beautiful landscape, resembling snow piled over tree branches.

Digital artworks created around the theme of “Strolling with the Orizuru” are displayed on the first floor. Once you have taken it all in, let us continue to the second floor.