I wanted to back track a bit and talk about a piece that really affected me during the weeks of the biennial. ‘Cut Papers’ by Sachiko Abe was a piece I found to be very emotive and powerful.

The performance at the A Foundation gallery involved Abe herself meticulously cutting sheets of plain white paper into long threads. 

My first reaction to the piece was absolute admiration and awe. Before I entered the room I had no idea what to expect, but I was taken aback by the elegant tower of finely trimmed paper, which must have been higher than a double-decker bus. The trail of paper lead across the floor and up the wall of an office window, to where Abe was sitting rhythmically cutting the paper. The sound of each snip was expelled into each corner of the room by a microphone. And despite the grand size of the room this aspect of the piece makes us feel closer and warms the space. Each of her performances lasts an hour and a half and she dos at least three a day. She will do this everyday for the whole 12 weeks of the biennial. It really makes you think doesn’t it? What would drive a person to do something so repetitive? 

I read that Abe has pent some time in the military and that often her work is a way of releasing her anxieties obedience Determination, training, control.