2,000 paper cranes
Since Joey’s passing from cancer in 2014, Joey’s mother Kathy Liu has been creating installations like this as both a tribute to Joey’s love of artmaking and a way of spreading hope for a cure for childhood cancers.
Tweet ShareTwo thousand delicately folded origami paper cranes will flock in delicate clusters in The New Children’s Museum atrium from September 6 through October 2, 2017. Each crane honors one of the approximately 2,000 children in the United States who pass away from cancer every year. The art installation commemorates national Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, remembering those families affected by cancer.
A Wish for a Cure
Who Made This?
- Kathy Liu and Joey's Wings
- Website
- joeywings.org
After her son Joey passed away from a rare cancer, Kathy Liu began folding paper cranes. The process was a way of remembering her artistic son, who, among his many creative interests, loved experimenting with origami. It was also a reference to senbazuru, a Japanese tradition in which anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes will be granted one wish. The wish? Cure for childhood cancers, which only get 4% of federal funding on research.
Soon, Kathy’s heartfelt project grew into Joey’s Wings, a non-profit that has lifted the hearts of many and raised over $150,000 in the past two and a half years through a unique process. In exchange for donations, Kathy Liu and volunteers fold paper cranes and deliver them to children’s hospitals, creating hopeful decorations for children’s IV stands as well as large-scale installations such as the one at The New Children’s Museum. All money raised goes to providing emotional and financial support to families with children who are undergoing treatment for cancers, as well as, of course, that one wish: finding cures for the cancers that affect children all over the world.
This is the second large-scale installation by Kathy Liu and Joey’s Wings and the first in California. To learn more about Joey’s Wings and to learn more about how you can contribute to the project, please visit www.joeywings.org.
