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Liverpool/Sheffield, United Kingdom

Wednesday 6 October 2010

Sachiko Abe


Sachiko Abe’s endurance, performance absolutely blew me away. On entering the huge silent warehouse the first two things I noticed were the train of shredded paper trailing from the ceiling from the centre of the room like a drape of lace, and the repetitive sound of cutting paper. The train tapered out and flowed in a line towards the back of the room like a trail of salt. It flowed up the outer wall of a small building within the huge warehouse and in to the arms of a very beautiful Japanese woman wearing a very crisp white dress and shawl (Sachiko Abe.) It became apparent that the repetitive sound was coming from a microphone attached to the pair of scissors she was holding and that the trail of paper had emerged and was accumulating as she cut slithers off plain white sheets of A4. She sat cutting and rotating the paper in an almost trance like state. After being in the room for a good 10 minuets a crowd of noisy school children entered the space completely disrupting the silence. Abe became extremely agitated raised her index finger to her lips and gestured for silence. When her audience failed to notice her attempt she stopped cutting the paper she closed her eyes and folded her arms in a shockingly authoritive manner, boycotting her own performance. She only stared cutting again once the school children had left the room and the room was silent. 


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