Hundreds of steel scissors hang point-downward from the ceiling, their mass concentrated over a low black table. Black thread drops from the open blades, accumulating in dense, irregular clusters on the surface below. From a distance, this structure appears as a solid canopy of metal and fibre, a dark volume pressing down on the floor and dictating the room's vertical tension. At close range, the individual threads isolate, pulling taut under the gravitational drag of the iron shears, while severed ends pool unevenly on the wood, exposing the frayed tips of the cut cotton. I argue that traces of rupture and acts of connection do not occur in sequence; they are produced through one another, operating not as the erasure of damage but as the redistribution of material burdens, labour, and control.

In Beili Liu’s The Mending Project, iron scissors suspend in the air while the artist sits below, continuously cutting and stitching black fabric. The thread binds the cloth, dragging the raw edges together through repetitive needlework, while the shears overhead threaten to sever the connection at any moment. The installation engulfs the upper volume of the room, forcing a horizontal plane of sharp metal to bear down upon the site of labour, intercepting the ambient light and casting fragmented, jagged shadows across the work surface.