(re)presenting liminality

There are many and varied representations of liminal. It is a term from anthropology that has been reinterpreted through other disciplines for differing reasons. Often works of art are retrospectively interpreted as liminl or being about liminality. For me there is a beauty and an indeterminacy that offers multiple possibilities and interpretations of a space. There is also a receptiveness in a liminal state that opens the subject up to suggestion or new connections between elements.

   

This is a still from the Bill Viola video installation "Oceans without a shore" at NGV. You can get a sense of it here but it is best experienced as a installation (preferably at the 16th chapel in Venice it was designed for). He represents bodies in the transition between spaces, which could be taken to be the afterlife and the earthly realm. It's interesting to hear Bill talk about how the actors didn't raelly need directing as they all had a narrative that they brought to the project.

This is a simple graphic design image but I like it because of the different points of focus that give it depth and an unsettled feeling

This installation, called 'Liminal Air' by Shinji Ohmaki, is the best spatial represetation of liminal that I've found. A space that is neither here nor there.

Another

This image by artist Eva Lee entitled 'Liminal Division 2' shows the liminal space as  the space between spaces, contextualised by the space around it, but devoid of matter or meaning.