Crossing a Threshold
22 September, 2023 - 18 February, 2024
Adad Hannah, Jean McEwen, Lise Gervais, Michael Forster, Michael Thompson, Susanna Heller, Sylvain Bouthillette, Tony Urquhart and William MacDonell
Curated by Jennifer Bullock
A threshold is a place that is in between. It is liminal. The experience of liminality might differ with context, but always refers to that space–literal or metaphorical–between one thing and another. In crossing a threshold, we step from what was to what will be. Works in this exhibition have been chosen to explore varying states of betweenness.
We dwell within and pass through these transitory zones every day. Some are mundane, like stepping through a doorway to leave one room and enter another. Others are more significant, like crossing through adolescence in the process of becoming an adult. Walking a beach, every step falls between the land and the water. In an empty space, our thoughts might wander to imagine what went before while wondering what might come next.
Liminality exists after a moment of change but before the consequences of that change have fully resolved. Such moments of transition can hold equal parts trepidation and wonder. We leave what is known to enter what is not known. In crossing that threshold, we may experience a discomfort of the unknown while embracing the anticipation of undefined potential.
Adad Hannah (Canadian, b. 1971). After Muybridge (Leaping), 2016. Pigment Print, 46.5 x 119.5 cm. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Collection: Gift of the Artist, 2019. Photo: Adad Hannah. © Adad Hannah. Used by permission.
