A sheet of paper and a pair of scissors. These are the simple ingredients of kirigami, a complex art that brings the classic Japanese origami to a brand new level.
The name itself, coined in 1962 by the origami expert Florence Temko, explains it all: it derives from the Japanese words kiri ("to cut") and kami ("paper").
And the cutting is precisely what differentiates it from origami: first you need to make the cuts, then you fold the sheets to get a three-dimensional effect which can also be very elaborate. So much so that kirigami is used not only to create artistic or figurative objects, but also architectural and geometric models used in physics, nanotechnologies, engineering, and the aerospace industry.