Liminal, Richard Sennett, excerpt from Contact catalogue
Liminal: an arty, abstruse, abused word. Also, a real experience. “Liminal” names that moment when things are on the edge of appearing or disappearing, you aren’t sure which. “Liminal” can name the play of shadows on a wall; uncertainty comes because you don't know whose bodies casts the shadow, or, if the shadow is giant, whether the real body is also giant, or instead, minute -- the shadow, as it were, greater than the self. Again, a liminal experience can be one in which a strong, contained light obscures rather than illuminates the space around it, like the penumbra of strong light and deep dark which occurs as an eclipse of the moon comes and goes; during this transition, you are aware of darkness in a way you normally aren’t.
Richard Sennett, Liminal, excerpt from Contact catalogue