CUT PIECE RE-PERFORMANCE - 2017
For this performance I revisited Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1964). Viewers were invited to engage with me by cutting my clothing with a pair of scissors. I knelt on a blanket in the central mezzanine with a pair of scissors and several threaded needles in-front of me. As the pieces fell away it was up to the viewer to take or leave them; I would sew what was left back together and reattached them to my body.
This performance denies objectivity and emphasizes the social construct of morality, feminine vulnerability, fetishization and the struggle to maintain oneself. The audience is active in a role where they become the revealer, and potentially the destroyer. Like the original performance It critiques the gaze and emphasizes the indoctrinated gender roles of society by challenging the boundaries within the system. I believe that this re-interpretation of the Cut Piece performance is even more relevant now after 50 years.
