Most traveling artists take photographs, or sit down to recreate the scenes they’ve seen in pencil, pastel or paint. But Laura Cooperman captures the places she’s been in an altogether different way: she crafts them into stunningly intricate paper landscapes with lace-like details.

Folded and layered into three dimensions, Cooperman’s paper cut-outs are pinned into place; some are even made into moving mechanical sculptures with the help of gears and motors.

Cooperman, a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, received the Graner Marbugh Travel Grant which enabled her to live and work in Beijing, China and to travel extensively.

“Through the amalgamation of these specific sites, Cooperman references the loss of localized meaning in our contemporary world,” notes her artist bio. “Traditional textile designs, architectural elements, wild vegetation and commercial products from different cultures find themselves pieced together in a new environment with new meaning and purpose attached.”