Liminal Space

Liminal Space | Değiş-Tokuş (Exchange)

Collaborative Research & Art Production Project (2021)

Project Framework: Supported by Spaces of Culture (Kültür için Alan) and coordinated by Refik Akyüz & Serdar Darendeliler [GAPO] in collaboration with Lütfü İrdem and Sinan Kılıç [No 238], ‘Değiş Tokuş’ (Exchange) emerged as a solidarity-driven initiative during the pandemic. The project facilitated artistic production across borders, where 12 selected artists from Izmir, Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Şanlıurfa produced each other's projects through a unique remote-collaboration model. Under the editorial mentorship of Akyüz and Darendeliler, the process integrated intensive seminars, public talks by scholars such as Aslı Iğsız and Eda Yiğit, and digital "Instagram takeovers" that transformed social media into a discursive exhibition space.

Artist Collaboration & Concept: Collaborator: Hicret Ayaz İpek

"The concept of 'Exchange' in this project transcends a mere swap of images; it functions as a transfer of sensory perception and spatial legitimacy. Working in tandem with Hicret Ayaz İpek, I explored the boundaries of 'Liminality'—the state of being between two thresholds. In this process, where we acted as each other's eyes and hands in distant cities, the act of production became a tool for deconstructing geographical distance. My contribution focuses on the 'transferred gaze,' where the legitimacy of the space is not found in its physical presence, but in its semiological reconstruction through the other. By documenting the unseen layers of these liminal zones, the work challenges the singular authority of the artist, proposing instead a collective, fragmented narrative of memory and space."

Aynur Tıkıroğlu, Liminal Space, Mixed Media, 2021

Liminal Space (in-betweenness)

The change in the functions and meanings of vital spaces with the pandemic has led us to reproduce the liminal areas, where our path is relatively less, with our own interpretation. The word 'liminal' comes from the Latin word 'limen' meaning 'threshold'. After leaving an area that is familiar to us and in which we feel comfortable, the areas we pass through before moving on to the next stage and area are called liminal areas. The most important feature of liminal areas is that they do not make people feel very good. They are as ambiguous as we are familiar with. They are unknown. They are a kind of purgatory. For example, airports, train stations, stations, underpasses, hotel corridors or stairs are some examples of physical liminal areas. When we spend a little long time in these places, we usually feel uncomfortable.

Of course, there are liminal areas independent of space, which we cannot pass through, as in the pandemic period we live in. With the definition of spaces and the conflict of their functions, the conflict in our living spaces and drifting into uncertainty brought us all to a place where the normal is sought once again. Our emotions also had their share of setting limits and exceeding these limits.

Even though the liminal areas have a lot of diversity within themselves, we aim to deepen on the Basmane Train Station in İzmir, the 'abbara' in Mardin and the surrounding areas, photograph these areas and exchange between us, and as two artists with painting backgrounds, within the scope of 'Exchange'. We preferred to interpret their obscurity, fluidity, permeability, conflict and reconciliation with our own techniques. Looking at the liminal areas in each other's cities, which we never knew, through the photographs we took for each other and interpreting the notion of betweenness excited us on the one hand, and on the other hand pushed the limits of our perception.

Don't you also feel yourself on the 'threshold' in these days when we are traveling to be another without being one? We are crossing an irreversible threshold with nostalgia for the past. At this time when we can neither go back to the past nor see the future fully, we invite you to look from the threshold we interpret in our own world!