Beijing Project n.03 Megumi Shimizu 清水惠美

Megumi Shimizu 清水惠美 developed her intervention at the factory around two themes: encounter and self-effacement. Her approach to the people of the factory was careful and gentle; she introduced herself as a Japanese artist living and working in China and explored all the emotional consequences of that condition. Her presence was light and discreet, yet it touched people deeply.

A performance artist by nature, this time she chose to leave the stage to the people of Bernard Controls. With empathy she led them to perform “small gestures”, suspended between humour and absurdity, and recorded them in printed photographs that now hang in the offices, in the workshop and in other corners of the factory.

With the Butoh dancer Dudu, she turned the workshop into a place of happenings where the sense of time and space, and their strict meaning inside the factory, were deeply challenged. In her last intervention she made two large abstract paintings following the workers’ colour instructions, offering them an unexpected field of colour whenever they lift their heads and stop for a short break.

Megumi Shimizu’s intervention embodies the idea of “sensibility” at its highest and most effective, where even the smallest thing can become a creative spark.