a recognition that we, as humans, are always moving through thresholds, always caught between what was and what comes next - Why I’m Obsessed with Liminal Spaces
How Liminalism Became the Defining Aesthetic of Our Time Between Promise and Devastation: Liminal Spaces by Ferdinanda Florence
From an existential perspective, liminal spaces may resonate because they mirror our own experiences of uncertainty and change. Life itself is full of liminal moments—waiting for something to begin, standing at a crossroads, feeling caught between the past and the future. Liminal spaces symbolize this state of flux, inviting us to sit in the discomfort of the unknown. Perhaps our fascination with them isn’t just about nostalgia or eeriness, but about something deeper: a subconscious recognition that life, in many ways, is a series of thresholds we are constantly stepping through. (…) My personal favourite, driving down a desolate country road at night in deep fog? These scenarios all evoke a sense of detachment from reality. (…) Why do some people find comfort in liminal spaces while others experience deep unease? The answer likely lies in personal psychology. For some, liminal spaces evoke nostalgia—a longing for places or moments that feel just out of reach, almost remembered but not quite. Others experience a sense of existential unease, an eerie reminder of life’s constant transitions and uncertainties. (…) On a broader level, liminal spaces reflect something deeply human: change, transition, and the unknown. Adapting to change has never been easy (…) Whether it’s moving to a new city, entering adulthood, or experiencing a major life shift, we all go through moments where we exist between two states — no longer what we were, but not yet what we will become. Liminality, in many ways, mirrors those phases of personal growth. The fraught nature of change often makes me want to retreat into my bubble, avoiding the inevitable and lingering in the in-between. However, I know that life’s best moments come from stepping through the threshold, head held high, ready to embrace whatever awaits on the other side. Why I’m Obsessed with Liminal Spaces
After thinking about it more, though, I started to wonder: do the images themselves feel liminal because they create a dichotomy between remembered youth and current existence? Because they emphasize that vastness between? Perhaps the distance between a body and a memory is a liminal space, unique from body to body, from memory to memory. The space depicted might not be a liminal one, but the image itself might hold the power to bring us to an intangible liminal place or state, and keep us there. [Demystifying the Liminal Space][https://horseinthepool.substack.com/p/demystifying-the-liminal-space]
Architectural spaces can provoke certain feelings just as human interaction does. They can represent times long gone, different periods of our lives, and situations in which we once took part or that we want to take part in.
In the context of this new movement, liminal spaces, including so-called backrooms, are a type of emotional space that conveys a sense of nostalgia, lostness, and uncertainty. They often lack activity and purpose either because they lay unused or because they are spaces of transition - of becoming instead of being. They connect to the basic human condition of ephemerality, the notion that nothing lasts forever. As generic as liminal spaces are, they become impossible to locate and thus transcend time and place, attaining an eerie otherworldly feeling.
Who doesn’t feel at unease watching Danny roll around the corridors of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining? [Architecture: The Cult Following Of Liminal Space][https://museemagazine.com/features/2020/11/1/the-cult-following-of-liminal-space?ref=hyperallergic.com]