Liminal Being

A city with a big housing crisis, where demand far outstrips affordable supply, where home ownership is out of reach for most young people. Work is often, by necessity, as temporary and diverse as the number of places we live, it is not surprising that many have adopted and embraced ways of living and being that are different from  previous generations.

The geographic mobility made possible by technological advancements in transport and communications together with greater prosperity and less stable job markets mean people can, want and have to, travel, live and work in places other than where they have grown up or want to live. This hyper-mobility and unrootedness, sometimes actively embraced, other times enforced, changes what home means because 'where we live doesn't just change how we live; it informs who we become' (Sherry Turkle)

There are words and concepts I have used as a starting point to explore in pictures what my home London means to me, using the words as themes for each set of images. I have also collected different people’s views on what home means to them by asking three questions, their answers are also here.

Liminality

1. The transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous, shows obedience and humility, and follows prescribed forms of conduct, dress, etc.
2. The condition of being on a threshold or at the beginning of a process.
3. Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

Apophenia

The tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas).

Sehnsucht

The inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one’s home.