Hauntings in the Wake: Liminal Thresholds
My work in this series investigates how memory persists within space—how environments act as repositories of lived experience, trauma, and transformation. I approach architecture, interiors, and landscapes as mnemonic fields where the past continues to operate within the present. “Hauntings” in this context do not refer solely to the supernatural; they describe the ways historical events, personal loss, cultural conflict, and collective memory remain embedded in the material world, quietly shaping perception and behavior. Places do not simply contain events—they retain them, allowing the past to remain perceptible long after its visible traces have faded (Tuan 1977).
The concept of liminality forms the central conceptual thread connecting this body of work. Derived from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold,” liminality describes the condition of being suspended between what has ended and what has not yet begun, a transitional state first articulated in rites-of-passage theory by Arnold van Gennep (van Gennep 1909; Turner 1969). The spaces depicted—domestic rooms, institutional corridors, architectural fragments, catacomb-like interiors, and atmospheric panoramas—exist at boundaries between presence and absence, life and death, permanence and decay. These environments maintain recognizable structures while simultaneously suggesting permeability, where histories overlap and temporal layers collapse into one another.
Many of these works function as journeys through present-day catacombs of discarded, shattered, and anonymous remains. Drawing from the history of sacred catacombs, the imagery links the forsaken of the past with the neglected of the present, collapsing religious, civic, and institutional spaces into a shared visual language of abandonment and remembrance. From sacred burial chambers to secular institutions, these environments reveal societies weakened by oppression, neglect, and bureaucratic indifference. The vandalized, plundered, and overgrown landscapes depicted in the work ask viewers to pause and critically question the decision-making structures that render individuals, communities, and entire environments disposable.
Across printmaking, photography, and mixed-media processes, I explore how time alters matter through weathering, decay, erosion, and reconstruction. Techniques such as rust printing, layered transfers, surface distressing, and experimental material treatments allow the materials themselves to participate in transformation, producing imagery that embodies rather than simply represents change. By appealing to the senses through texture, color, and material instability, these works invite reflection on the repercussions of choices that lead to both intimate and large-scale societal demise (Edensor 2005).
I expand this investigation to the broader scale of historical inheritance. Contemporary life unfolds in the aftermath of wars, migrations, environmental devastation, and political decisions made long before our time. As Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick observe, societies often remain “in thrall to their visions of the past,” unaware of how historical narratives shape what is perceived as thinkable or achievable in the present (Stone and Kuznick 2012). The cultural, ecological, and psychological consequences of earlier events continue to circulate through contemporary identities and environments, positioning us within currents already set in motion.
Despite their visual richness, these images present a sober meditation on power structures that enable exploitation, persecution, deterioration, and ultimately erasure. Yet the work does not remain fixed in despair. Ruins and fragments are treated not only as symbols of loss, but as sites of potential regeneration. Echoing Eckhart Tolle’s assertion that a constructive future emerges through awareness of the present moment (Tolle 1997), these works suggest that recognizing the forces that haunt our spaces and histories enables resistance, accountability, and the reimagining of collective futures. In this sense, haunting becomes not only a condition of memory, but a liminal threshold through which new forms of meaning, responsibility, and possibility can emerge.
Works Cited
Edensor, Tim. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Berg, 2005.
Stone, Oliver, and Peter Kuznick. The Untold History of the United States. Gallery Books, 2012.
Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. New World Library, 1997.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine, 1969.
van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. University of Chicago Press, 1960 (orig. 1909).
The concept of liminality forms the central conceptual thread connecting this body of work. Derived from the Latin limen, meaning “threshold,” liminality describes the condition of being suspended between what has ended and what has not yet begun, a transitional state first articulated in rites-of-passage theory by Arnold van Gennep (van Gennep 1909; Turner 1969). The spaces depicted—domestic rooms, institutional corridors, architectural fragments, catacomb-like interiors, and atmospheric panoramas—exist at boundaries between presence and absence, life and death, permanence and decay. These environments maintain recognizable structures while simultaneously suggesting permeability, where histories overlap and temporal layers collapse into one another.
Many of these works function as journeys through present-day catacombs of discarded, shattered, and anonymous remains. Drawing from the history of sacred catacombs, the imagery links the forsaken of the past with the neglected of the present, collapsing religious, civic, and institutional spaces into a shared visual language of abandonment and remembrance. From sacred burial chambers to secular institutions, these environments reveal societies weakened by oppression, neglect, and bureaucratic indifference. The vandalized, plundered, and overgrown landscapes depicted in the work ask viewers to pause and critically question the decision-making structures that render individuals, communities, and entire environments disposable.
Across printmaking, photography, and mixed-media processes, I explore how time alters matter through weathering, decay, erosion, and reconstruction. Techniques such as rust printing, layered transfers, surface distressing, and experimental material treatments allow the materials themselves to participate in transformation, producing imagery that embodies rather than simply represents change. By appealing to the senses through texture, color, and material instability, these works invite reflection on the repercussions of choices that lead to both intimate and large-scale societal demise (Edensor 2005).
I expand this investigation to the broader scale of historical inheritance. Contemporary life unfolds in the aftermath of wars, migrations, environmental devastation, and political decisions made long before our time. As Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick observe, societies often remain “in thrall to their visions of the past,” unaware of how historical narratives shape what is perceived as thinkable or achievable in the present (Stone and Kuznick 2012). The cultural, ecological, and psychological consequences of earlier events continue to circulate through contemporary identities and environments, positioning us within currents already set in motion.
Despite their visual richness, these images present a sober meditation on power structures that enable exploitation, persecution, deterioration, and ultimately erasure. Yet the work does not remain fixed in despair. Ruins and fragments are treated not only as symbols of loss, but as sites of potential regeneration. Echoing Eckhart Tolle’s assertion that a constructive future emerges through awareness of the present moment (Tolle 1997), these works suggest that recognizing the forces that haunt our spaces and histories enables resistance, accountability, and the reimagining of collective futures. In this sense, haunting becomes not only a condition of memory, but a liminal threshold through which new forms of meaning, responsibility, and possibility can emerge.
Works Cited
Edensor, Tim. Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Berg, 2005.
Stone, Oliver, and Peter Kuznick. The Untold History of the United States. Gallery Books, 2012.
Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. New World Library, 1997.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Aldine, 1969.
van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. University of Chicago Press, 1960 (orig. 1909).
All Text and Artwork © Nicole Patrice Dul 2026
