Liminal Space: What We Can Learn
By Britt Campbell 
I was an Art History Major at UCSB taking a class, Performance of the Human Body, when the concept of liminal space entered my world. Liminal space is described as “... where boundaries dissolve...” and where or when we prepare “to move across the limits of what we were, into what we are to be” Of course, as a live music junkie I was in awe. That feeling I got in a crowd at a concert where strangers became friends through movement, lyrics, and the physical environment of the show had a name? Not only a name but a whole concept, framework, definition, and characteristics.
I brought a notebook to every music festival I attended that year. I was convinced that by taking notes of how people were feeling in liminal spaces that I could start to define what people’s expectations of an experience was. What started as a passion project in the later years of college has turned into a life’s work. I am continually thinking about how to design a space, program, workshop, & art experience into liminal spaces that provoke an emotional response in people, just like my favorite physical liminal spaces evoke particular feelings.
You see, I hate surprises, things that don’t occur as regularly scheduled, people who are late, and basically any experience in which I have to enter not knowing what I will be met with. Except for art. Art done right, for me, creates an opportunity in which I am okay being in the in-between. I am okay not knowing what may come next, how I will feel, how to process, or exactly what I am thinking. When art creates liminal space, I relax into an experience I know will move me. I give up my need to control, to know, to sort, separate, disembody, label, and judge. I in essence experience, which does not come naturally to someone like me who’d rather just observe & document.
So my question to you dolls, is when did you last feel like you were living? It’s a hard one to answer, and perhaps a question that we’ve even stopped asking.
I was living when I watched Amanda Gorman recite “The Hill We Climb” at the Inauguration of the 46th President Joe Bidden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
I was living when a small group of local activists held a post-election retreat and kept a self-proclaimed, Candle of Democracy, alive while we anxiously tried to ignore the constant media of counting votes.
I was living when my best friend and I rented a F-250 XTL to drive up the coast of California to celebrate a milestone birthday.
We are living through liminal times. And while transitions may be uncomfortable, this does not mean if we are acting safely and responsibly that we stop living. I’ll be the first one to admit that the cancellation of live performances has taken away a space where I connect, recharge, and am the best version of myself. But imagination is available to everyone. In just one year our cultural and societal behaviors have changed.
If we can learn to see quarantine as a liminal space, as a place where we are leaving the limits of what we were to become what we are to be, what can we get rid of? What can we build in? I offer you three arts and culture workers who’ve spent their quarantine time creatively reimagining because it is in liminal space where we have the potential to access and tap into what previously seemed impossible.
Sidewalk Poetry, a collaboration between the City of Santa Clarita Arts and Events Division and the City’s Department of Public Works
2. Summaeverythang Community Center, INC., since March 2020 quarantine. Artist Lauren Halsey and her people’s Summaeverythang Community Center have been donating and delivering organic produce from Southern California farms to South Ventral L.A. Halsey says “I was looking forward to opening Summaeverytahng-located next door to my studio-in late summer/fall, but Corona stopped that. So I started thinking of ways to engage the ideologies and thesis of the community center with the community, outside of the physical space.”
3. Herstory, Valley Doll is announcing our own monthly storyclub meet-ups. First engagement is on March 10th, we can’t wait to see you there.