Bay Area art collective creates large-scale origami art for the world to enjoy

DANVILLE; Calif. -- A temporary art installation is making the town of Danville a little brighter this summer.

Bay Area art collective, FoldHaus, will have their large-scale origami artwork "Shrumen Lumen" on display through Labor Day.

"Our work is inspired by nature," said Jesse Silver, Artist of FoldHaus. "We always take that cue and blow it out of proportion a little bit."

Shrumen Lumen is an art display of kinetic mushrooms filled with LED Lights and expand up to14 feet.

"We're a collective, we all come together to build these crazy pieces of art and come from all different communities and build towards a central purpose," said Silver. "It takes a lot of different skills to make these pieces. We have electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, (and) we have people writing custom software to do the show controls for the motion and the lights."

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Most of FoldHaus artwork is made with corrugated plastic, aluminum, steel, LED lights, and more.

FoldHaus originally created their art for Burning Man, an annual event held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada.

"It has to be able to survive fairly strong winds. We design this (Shrumen Lumen) to survive a desert environment where the wind might be blowing 60-70 miles an hour," said Silver. "We also choose this material because light shines through it in a very beautiful way. It diffuses the light. So, when it gets darker the entire material kind of lights up and all of the folds create these beautiful gradients of color."

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Everyone who works on a FoldHaus art piece, volunteers their time and skills.

Up to fifty people have worked on one-single art piece to bring the vision together.

"I think the biggest learning from all of our pieces is that if you have a community that is interested in making a vision come true, and you just sort of pursue it step-by-step. You actually can make anything that you imagine," said Silver. "If you are all just committed to the vision and have a passion for it. You can just make it happen."

In the past seven years, FoldHaus' artwork has been displayed in museums and music festivals all over the world.

"We could have never imagined that our pieces would end up in museums and end up traveling the world," said Silver. "It really creates this sense of joy for all of us to watch people be delighted by our art. There's this great sense of joy in being able to accomplish these things together and really we do this because its fun for us."

Shrumen Lumen is temporarily displayed in Downtown Danville through Labor Day. Check out the illuminated mushrooms in front of the Village Theatre and the Danville Library.

For more information, visit the FoldHaus website.