Pune, the cultural heartthrob of Maharashtra, is turning tradition into imaginative moulds through beautiful creases on paper. The ‘Wonderfold 2025’ Origami Art Exhibition, running from October 30th to November 2nd at the Tilak Smarak Mandir, aims to become a dazzling gallery of miracles crafted from paper. The essence of this event lies in the fact that even the simplest of materials, like paper, if it falls into the right creative hands, can be turned into beautiful art pieces, which not only amuses us but also impresses us to look for more of their kind. This year’s edition marks a milestone in a long-running celebration of folds, creases, and sheer imagination. This creative space is like an annual pilgrimage for art lovers who have a phenomenal curiosity about experimenting with various media.
The Legacy of Origami Mitra
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The ‘Wonderfold’ exhibition is the continuation of a decades-long mission. This year marks the 18th iteration of the prestigious event, a recurring celebration that has graced Pune once every two years for the last 35 years. It is a powerful joint effort by the Indutai Tilak Kala Kendra and the dedicated enthusiasts of Origami Mitra. This year, the event’s centrepiece attraction is an Ashtavinayak Ganapati crafted entirely from paper.
The roots of the most renowned origami associations are Japanese. However, a homegrown movement in Pune has made a profound impact on the city’s cultural landscape. The story goes back to the 1990s, when a visionary group comprising Indutai Tilak, Vishwas Deval, and Anil Avachat came together with a unified goal to popularize the ancient Japanese art form of origami in India. The members of Origami Mitra perceived Origami as a Universal language, as the art form comprised of immense potential and demanded a lot of precision and meticulous effort to turn a plain folio into an elegant piece of art. For over three decades, this group has served as a space for people who are passionate about transitioning flat paper into three-dimensional entities. These attempts have made Pune a major hub for this mesmerizing art, making ‘Wonderfold’ a highly anticipated event on the city’s cultural calendar.
The Sacred Centerpiece and a Tribute of Paper
The undisputed attraction of the exhibition is an intricate depiction of the Ashtavinayak Ganapati, all meticulously crafted from paper. The Ashtavinayak are the eight sacred temples of Ganesha located around Maharashtra, and creating a cohesive representation of these eight distinct deities using only folded paper is truly a challenge. This masterpiece beautifully associates the Japanese tradition of paper folding with the cultural and spiritual fabric of Maharashtra, making it a powerful symbol of artistic fusion and faith.
Also, this year’s exhibition is being held in honor of Lokmanya Tilak’s great-grandson and former Vice Chancellor of Tilak Maharashtra University, who recently passed away. This intentional placement of offering homage to such a personality elevates the essence of the event and makes its association with the legacy a lot firmer.
An Expedition into Technique
Visitors to the Tilak Smarak Mandir will find origami extending far beyond the familiar paper crane. The exhibition is a masterclass to explore more ways to mould a single square sheet. The displays showcase an astonishing corpus of objects, including models of various birds and animals, flowers, designed containers, and action models that move and interact. As Milind Kelkar of Origami Mitra highlighted, visitors will have the opportunity to delve into the concept of ‘in which fields origami is used.’
The creative space of this event peaks at the moment when people from different interests, like Instagram-hungry culture-seekers, a design student seeking inspiration, or a family looking for a creative day out, all come together at a shared square and look for more thrilling innovations. This moves the art from simply being a hobby to a practical science.
Event Details
| Event | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Wonderfold 2025 Origami Art Exhibition |
| Dates | October 30 to November 2, 2025 |
| Venue | Tilak Smarak Mandir, Tilak Road, Pune |
| Timings | 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM (All Days) |
| Organizers | Indutai Tilak Kala Kendra & Origami Mitra |
| Inauguration | October 30, 10:30 AM |
| Entry | Open to all visitors |
Key Highlights
- A life-size (or close) Ashtavinayak Ganapati created from paper — devotional art meets delicate craft.
- Demonstrations and technique displays showing how complex shapes emerge from a single square.
- A living history: Origami Mitra’s long stewardship of the exhibition is a testament to grassroots art activism in Pune.
- Cross-disciplinary notes on origami’s applications — architecture, product design, education, and therapy.
Why does it matter?
Beyond being visually delightful, Wonderfold reminds us that creativity doesn’t need expensive materials or digital wonders to form a beautiful piece of art. It can be easily extracted from the most trivial and commonly available material, such as a single square of paper. All it requires is patience and smart skills to fold the folios through the rules of geometry and applied sculptural thinking. In a world that often prizes speed, an origami exhibition is a meditative counterpoint.
Takeaway
Wonderfold 2025 represents a vital celebration of patience in an increasingly fast-paced, digitized world. There is an almost meditative quality to origami, a silent protest against wastefulness, as a single sheet of paper is transformed into a beautiful piece of art. This exhibition reminds us of the profound joy found in creation, precision, and the simplicity of the hand-crafted. Anyone seeking inspiration, a moment of quiet awe, owes a visit to this metamorphic space. The transformation of a two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional reality is nothing short of alchemy, and Pune is lucky enough to host this annual unfolding of magic.
