These workshops will be for a group of 10 people who, over 10 weeks making 10 origami cranes per session each, will create a Senbazuru of 1,000 cranes together. The sessions are open to anyone who is struggling with grief from losing someone to Covid. There won’t be an agenda or set objectives and the conversations will be led by members of the group. This is a place to talk, share, listen and create. My hope is that by gently engaging with the reality of grief and at the same time working together to create an object of beauty, we can share the human experience of loss and support each other through the process.

The practice of Senbazuru is often spoken of in relation to one person in particular – a young girl named Sadako Sasaki. At two years old, Sadako became a person affected by the bombing of Hiroshima. While Sadako survived the bombing, she was severely irradiated and died at the age of 12 from leukaemia caused by the after-effects. Before she died, Sadako set herself the task of folding 1,000 paper cranes. As paper was in short supply she made use of scrap paper – anything she could get her hands on in the hospital to enable her to complete her objective. Some versions of the tale say that she didn’t make her final goal and that her friends and family contributed to it after her death, while others say that she both met and surpassed it. Either way, she became a symbol of optimism and resilience in the face of adversity.

In the first session I will teach you how to make an origami crane and I will provide all of the materials we will need to make the Senbazuru. You are also welcome to write personal messages on the origami paper before folding it if you feel it would help you to process any difficult feelings.

Once the crane installation is complete, the group will then decide whether to hang it in a particular place or whether perhaps to leave it exposed to the elements, allowing it to become tattered and slowly dissolve enabling the emotions of those who have lovingly folded the origami cranes to be released.

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