Centerfold 2021 Canceled

Centerfold homepage with the information

I was sad to learn that Centerfold 2021, where I was supposed to be one of the convention’s guests, was canceled just yesterday. Originally, I was invited to the 2020 edition, together with Paolo Bascetta and Sebastien Limet, but that year’s edition got cancelled due to the pandemic. The event was supposed to take place in 2021 instead, with me, Ekaterina Lukasheva and Boice Wong as guests. Due to the epidemic situation, it’s quite likely I would not have been able to come in 2021, either, but it’s still a pity to see the event completely canceled once again.

Even sadder are the circumstances of how this happened, with people on both sides of the discussion getting angry at each other and unable to back off a little to find common ground. Unfortunately, since the details of who said and did what are not available, and the discussion is scattered over multiple places, it’s hard to make a full picture of the situation. Nonetheless, it’s sad to see lots of people up in arms and, apart from a few exceptions, not making efforts to clarify the situation to outside observers or to look at the other side’s arguments. I have always considered the origami community one of the nicer places on the internet, with pretty much everyone being helpful and nice, but it seems unfortunately in this case “the internet way of discussion” got us as well.