Jordanian flag ‘breaks Guinness record’ for largest origami mosaic

AMMAN — Lujain Abbasi, joined by thousands of Jordanians, decided to showcase the Kingdom’s peace and security to the whole world in an artistic way during the Kingdom’s 69th Independence Day celebrations. 

Abbasi worked with 3,000 public and private school students to create the world’s largest origami mosaic in the shape of the Jordanian flag.

“We used a total of 250,000 origami pieces of peace doves. We chose the peace logo because we wanted to reflect the peace and security that Jordan enjoys and many neighbouring countries in the region lack. We have been working on this over the past two months,” she told The Jordan Times as volunteers were putting finishing touches on the flag.  

The Jordanian flag, created using the Japanese art of folding paper, on Monday broke the Guinness World Record for the largest origami mosaic, according to Jordan News Agency, Petra.

Yuto Nagano, the cultural attaché at the Japanese embassy in Jordan, acted as an independent judge and ruled that the flag mosaic broke the record, Petra reported. 

The flag was on display at Al Hussein Youth City, where Nagano measured its length (43 metres) and width (24 metres) and announced it broke the world record, according to Petra.

At 1,032 square metres, the mosaic broke the record previously held by Anan Kids Academy in India, where an origami mosaic measuring 910.94 square metres was created using 60,008 origami foldings.

Abbasi, of the Origami School Jordan, stressed that participants in the project wanted to do something new unlike the “old-fashioned events”.

“It was an opportunity for us to make people aware of this kind of art as well.”

She said origami is the art of creating objects with paper, and it is a good idea to get children interested in it rather than having technology consume their time.

Suhaib Zhgoul, one of the volunteers, said he wanted to take part in this activity to express his love for Jordan and put the country in the Guinness Book of World Records. 

“I was working on this flag since the early morning and we had been preparing for the event for many months,” he noted.  

The launch of the flag was part of the Higher Council for Youth’s celebration of Independence Day, Petra reported.