Liminal Engagement

In Painting class last week, Michael Greaves talked to me about my work. He actually attributed to it a much deeper (and really thought provoking) meaning than I had actually originally intended (for which I am gratedful!!!). In fact he used a term that I (rather embarrassingly) admit I have never heard before. "Liminal". He talked about my subject matter (the wall and stairs at St Clair) as being a liminal space, a frontier or threshold. The upward angle draws the viewer into the page and up the stairs (is inviting) as well as giving the viewing platform the appearance of a speaker's podium for a large-scale public gathering. Michael felt the painting created a number of questions: where do the stairs go? what is up there? why is the viewer being invited up? who belongs on the podium? what does the wall keep in / or keep out? He talked to me a little about liminal space - a place which is not dwelt in or lived in, only passed through. Through which people move to get from one place to another. Threshold. This has really appealed to me and has opened the door to a host of potential ideas for me to explore.
My initial step was to look up liminal in the dictionary!!! In summary - liminal is pertaining to the threshold of physiological and psychological response.
My next step was to search the net for this word in conjunction with 'art' and I discovered this site: http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality/
An enlightening and interesting read (I have printed a copy - its 8 pages!!!).
Through a search of images under "attribution licence" in Flickr, I came across a number of images of clearly the same installation work, titled "Liminal Engagement", interested in both the appearance and title of the installation, I then google searched "Liminal Engagement" and found a youtube clip about this particular work. Engagement... I like that. The viewer becomes participant.... is invited (drawn) to engage with the installation in the liminal space... the installation work itself can be seen as a liminal space, a series of arches / a canopy / a cave/ mountans / seafoam / the fence at a ballpark... a threshold. I really enjoyed viewing this... hope you do too!!!