Each morning, the performer draws her own blood. In silence, she uses it as ink to stamp onto discarded museum paper with self-designed stamps. At a simple table in a stripped-down space, she repeats a daily protocol of classification and trace-making. The paper piles up. The gesture repeats. The performance unfolds over six days. The room functions like an office, a checkpoint. The work draws from Joseph Beuys' Office for Direct Democracy (documenta 5, 1972), echoing its bureaucratic language. I, Hereby observes how systems assert truth through form. It reflects the aesthetics of permission and control, only to reveal their limits. What is registered here cannot be filed.
about the artist(s)
Michelle Samba is a multidisciplinary artist working with charged materials such as percussion, rope, hair and spoken invocations to explore presence and transformation. She has worked with the Marina Abramović Institute and presented work across Europe. With a background in music, poetry and performance, she combines sound, rhythm and visual language with durational action. Her practice unfolds in formally simple yet emotionally resonant settings, using the body as both tool and transmitter.
