The Latin word limen means border, crossing, but also a house, a kind of transition space. Liminality is a physiological, as well as neurological and metaphysical term denoting a threshold, transitional state between two stages of human or community development. One example of this condition is the initiation rite, upon completion of which a person receives a new status in society. Liminality is also associated with changes in values and norms, identity and self-awareness. The works of the "Limen" series convey the state of an illusory boundary space. They are made in a multi-layered acrylic technique. Scuff marks, scratches, and markings are used as full-fledged visual elements that contribute to the authenticity of the document. "I wanted to find and keep in them the duality of this time: openness and tightness, spatiality and flatness of the surface, structure and blurriness. They are at the same time calm and excited, balanced and rapidly mobile. They are beautiful and painful, like a freshly healing wound at the moment of initiation.",
— Alexey Gan is talking about this series.
Photographer Varvara Toplenikova
