A thousand origami cranes fluttered from trees in the public courtyard between the Hamilton wing and the Residences at the Denver Art Museum for a few hours Tuesday morning.

But almost as quickly as it went up, the colorful art installation that encouraged viewers to donate to Japan disaster relief went into the trash.

Art Institute of Colorado instructor Tom Finke and a student went to the museum about noon to see the piece — a completed assignment by another student, Talia Kauk, who hadn’t sought permission from the museum to install it.

“We got there, and they were blowing in the breeze,” said Finke of the cranes, which floated under branches on thin filament line. “The student was, like, ‘Oh, my God, they’re so beautiful!’ But there was this guy going snip, snip and throwing them into the trash.”

Passers-by were pulling them out of the cans as museum security guards tossed them in.

When Kauk got the assignment from Finke, she contemplated an installation that would raise social consciousness. She began thinking about origami cranes, a global symbol for world peace. “There were so many disasters all over,” she said. “This was even before the tsunami.”

The massive March 11 earthquake that prompted the tsunami hit as she was researching the history of the symbol. “It is symbolic in Japanese culture, that 1,000 cranes bring good luck,” she said.

Ginni Ishimatsu, director of the Asian studies program at the University of Denver, said the crane symbol is particularly resonant now as Japan deals with fears stemming from damaged nuclear reactors.

The book “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” links the origami birds to “the deaths in Hiroshima and the many people, including children, who got sick from radiation,” she said.

Eleanor Coerr’s book tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, who was at home in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb dropped in 1945. A decade later, she was diagnosed with leukemia. A friend visited her in the hospital and started to make paper cranes, heeding the ancient legend that anyone who made 1,000 origami cranes would be granted a wish, such as recovery from illness or injury.

Kauk incorporated 1,000 handmade cranes — from origami paper by local artist Madalyn Shalkey — into her installation.

Groups of 50 cranes were strung on 20 pieces of clear line, anchored by folded-paper boxes that Kauk’s boyfriend, Casey Siens, had printed with quick response, or QR, codes that allow smartphones to navigate instantly to a website.

Smartphone users who scanned the barcode would immediately access a Red Cross website seeking donations to the Japan fund. Also, tags dangling from the QR cubes gave instructions for texting donations to the Red Cross.

“I wanted to give it some relevance, to have it resonate with young people and encourage them to go over and look at it,” she said. “It’s the newest thing to do, and the QR code looked like art in itself.”

She chose the museum for the work because it gets a lot of foot traffic, and she felt her art would fit in. She started stringing the cranes from branches about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“I thought it was pretty,” she said.

The work wasn’t meant to be permanent, but she wishes it had lived a little longer.

“I thought it would add to things, rather than detract,” Kauk said. “It wasn’t malicious.”

Museum spokeswoman Ashley Pritchard said the security team was just following procedure. She said if Kauk had asked, the museum may have given permission for the installation.

“We sometimes get graffiti-bombed or have things added to our outdoor sculpture,” Pritchard said. “I have a feeling (security) didn’t realize it was an art installation or for the Red Cross.”