Sachiko Abe: Cut Paper

During November, we went on a field trip to Liverpool Biennial to visit various art shows and galleries. The piece of work that caught my attention the most was Sachiko Abe's Cut Paper. The piece was live performance art. What the piece consists of was a large pillar of cut paper in the room that leads back to Abe who sits up high on a building, almost like Romeo and Juliet. She's sat there snipping away thin strips of paper that fall to the ground that led to the large pillar, it reminded me of Rapunzel with her long hair.

Since the room's colour is full of industrial browns and greys and Abe is dressed in a white dress and the strings of paper and pure white there's an instant calmness and empowerment when I watched the performance. As soon as you walk in, everyone is in silence and deeply bemused. You cannot help but to stare at what she's doing. Abe almost looks like a snow angel.

The cutting is amplified by speakers around the room so when you walk in, you hear the slight snipping noise but as you walk closer you will hear it getting louder and it creates a certain intimate chemistry between the viewers eye and the artist.

The repetitiveness draws you in like an addiction but it's also very calming and atmospheric. Somewhat spiritual and meditational but Abe says otherwise that it's not. The pillar of paper have been accumulating for around seven years. Each snip of the skinny pieces of paper made a very satisfying noise and the way she was cutting made her look almost angelic. Her actions were graceful and patient which made the atmosphere so tranquil.

Another element of the performance is the self exploration needed to actually see her. When you walk into the space, you immediately see the pillar of paper then you walk and follow the trail that leads up to her which I found interesting. I stood in amazement just watching her slowly snipping and not even looking around.

Abe said she started cutting paper when she was in a mental hospital fourteen years ago. It helped calm her and deflected her need to cut herself. "It takes 40 minutes to cut one whole paper," she writes in her explanatory note. "The thinness is 0.5mm. During the depressed period, the thinness is about 0.3mm.": this suggests psychological factors brought into her performance. A human mind that is dysfunctional interests me. Sitting there hours on end cutting paper makes me think, "crazy and bizarre"; several words just pop into my head when I was watching her and it relates to the background structure of her work.

Emotions play a big role in this performance and each every one of the audience has different emotions. They react differently and think differently when they watch it. On the outside it's simplicity at it's best but there are deeper meanings to be explored that incorporates her life and about the society.