...I continued experimenting making boxes.

I wanted to make something that would induce curiosity, and encourage the viewer to peer inside. This box simply has a round window cut into it. I further disguised what was in the box by using wool which I threaded across the space inside the box.

On a side note, I am becoming increasingly aware that I should be writing more about the Biennial. Alot of the stuff I've seen is completely irrelevant to my work, but interesting none the less. A piece that I'm pretty sure I'll always remember is a piece by Sachiko Abe at A Foundation, entitled 'Cut Papers'. This piece does exactly what it says on the tin. The artist sits high above in a white dress, in an expansive room snipping at paper which cascades down to the floor. A tall cone of paper towers down in the centre of the room, and is the result of some seven years of paper cutting. The scissors she uses are slightly amplified but the space is otherwise silent so people instinctively fall quiet.

Whilst I was in this space, a large group of school children entered and caused quite alot of noise. Sachiko put one finger to her lips, and stopped cutting paper until a quietness fell once more. I felt small, and inferior to this woman whom I had never met, nor knew anything about. Maybe it was due to her being physically so high above us spectators, or the fact she seemed so composed and sure of herself and her actions that I felt perhaps just me being there, I was polluting this pure crisp environment

Also in this space is a small room with a series of intricate drawings which I can't begin to imagine the work that has gone into creating them. These drawings, and the action of cutting paper are supposedly a form of therapy for the artist, to keep her mind occupied and distract her from reality. I can understand how creating such work would induce a meditative state, and although this work could be seen as self indulgent, the results are aesthetically beautiful. There is also a ‘white room’ in which strands of paper hang from above. This room has a magical quality in its simplicity.

Text from the A Foundation website…


'In Cut Papers Abe invites the audience to experience an intimate space in which the constant snipping of scissor blades is the only measure of time passing. At A Foundation Liverpool Abe will perform for the duration of the Biennial but be warned Abe says. “My work is neither beautiful nor meditational.” Rather it is an aesthetic paradox that locates the artist at the center of a field of reciprocal subjectivity, she is an object of the gaze that returns the subject to themselves by activating a feedback loop. Cut Papers is a series of works that create a surplus of meaning within an apparently simple aesthetic economy. It is this scenic space of perception and production that is the focus of the work.'