Welcome to the Weird

In 1909, folklorist Arnold Van Gennep coined the term “liminality” in his book The Rights of Passage. Van Gennep’s concept of liminality describes a time in which a person is on the verge of entering a new phase in their life after leaving their old one behind.

Victor Turner, another folklorist, believed that all liminality must eventually come to an end. Either a person goes back to their old ways or pushes forward through the liminal threshold.

Since liminality has both spatial and temporal dimensions it can be applied to several different subjects, i.e. individuals, societies, time, and places.

I found out about Liminal Spaces the same way most people do: the internet. I was immediately fascinated by the concept because of my love for the uncanny. I’ve been creating digital paintings based on liminal spaces I’ve seen on the internet since 2020. Each piece shows my progression as an artist, the image above is one of my latest pieces. I found the reference image on the r/LiminalSpace subreddit under ‘Top’ of ‘All Time’.

As my art skills progressed (slowly) so did my fascination. What I mean to say is, my fascination with Liminal Spaces grew and branched out. Going from a study in liminal spaces to a study in the liminal (in general). I’m gathering together resources on the topic, bits of literature, bits of reference images, and so on.

Aside from my fascination with liminal spaces (and weirdcore in general) I love topics relating to the uncanny/uncanny valley, gothic horror, horror video games (and other media), symbolism, psychology, parapsychology, philosophy, anthropology (as long as they all pertain to the subjects I’m researching), and more. In hindsight, none of these things are essential or practical or important when it comes to day-to-day life, but they are subjects that engage our minds.

I want to open up a discussion with a question (it’s a broad question at the moment and I’d like to eventually narrow it down and create a real study on the matter): what/how do liminal spaces make you feel?

If you’re not sure what liminal spaces are here are some examples:

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You can find many more on the liminal space subreddit, pinterest, and Google. I’ve spent hours and hours looking at these images and they all evoke very similar emotions and thoughts. This fact made me obsess over them even more and eventually I fell into a bit of rabbit hole, but I haven’t found anything outrageously weird. Not yet anyway.