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Coco Sato is a Tokyo-born origami artist, educator, and performer who reimagines traditional paper folding as large-scale sculpture, installation, and live performance. With a background in printmaking and photo media, she approaches origami as both a visual art form and a choreographed, audience-driven experience. Her work spans workshops for children and families, festival performances using giant paper and full-body movement, and collaborations that connect origami with STEM ideas like geometry and engineering.

In this episode of Variety, Adam Sternberg sits down with origami artist Coco Sato to explore how a simple sheet of paper can become sculpture, performance, and even a tool for teaching maths. Coco shares origami’s roots in Japanese history, from folded poetic letters and gift-wrapping traditions to its modern identity as a widely taught childhood pastime in Japan.

Coco traces her own path from studying paper-based art and photography to building a career after becoming a mother, when she shifted toward teaching and discovered that scaling up origami made it more visible, physical, and performative. She describes moving from small demonstrations to giant outdoor festival work, where the folding itself became the art. They also discuss the difference between precision sculpture and live performance, the minimal tools required, and the real-world problems origami faces, including weather, soggy paper, and the challenges of giving clear instructions in the moment.

Adam learns two simple folds on camera, a butterfly and a cat, and Coco explains why origami can be therapeutic, how it trains focus and concentration, and how it can reshape how people see creativity in everyday materials. The conversation also touches on origami’s links to STEM, including geometry basics, collaborations with mathematicians, and real-world engineering applications like compact folding methods used in space-related design. Finally, Coco reflects on AI, where it can mimic the look of folds in advertising without being physically possible, and offers advice for young artists: stay flexible, say yes to opportunities, take risks, and do the scary thing that leads somewhere new.

00:00 Behind the scenes setup and intro to Coco Sato

00:00:42 What origami is and its origins in Japanese poetic letters

00:02:24 Coco’s background, Tokyo and Yokohama, creativity at home

00:03:55 From childhood play to paper-based art and 3D folded photo work

00:07:08 Motherhood, teaching, and discovering large-scale origami

00:08:18 Giant origami, choreography, performance vs sculpture

00:11:18 Minimal tools and Coco makes Adam a paper bow tie

00:17:47 Origami butterfly tutorial on camera

00:22:30 Adam learns an origami cat and Coco’s philosophy on perception

00:28:00 STEM links, folding limits, things going wrong, AI, and advice for artists