Being aware of your ‘space’ is incredibly important in any Site Specific piece, after all it is that space which really gives meaning to your piece. Choosing a site within the Drill Hall in which our piece would appear most prominent was a difficult task, due to the modernisation that has taken place over the years. There was no one room that seemed fitting; no where that ‘felt right’. Surprisingly, we discovered our site when we stopped looking.
The staircase.
We had climbed these stairs practically every week and had never taken notice of our surroundings. After all, a staircase is known as a ‘liminal space‘.
We move through these spaces without paying any attention to what is surrounding us: the sounds, smells and textures of the space. But when all these things are taken into account the space is transformed into the perfect canvas for a site specific piece.
Richard Rohr defines liminality as “When you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible next answer” (DeWaal, 2011) In my opinion, Rohr could be describing the limbo of death. We have no way of knowing what happens to a person once they die, which means that the soliders are in a figurative liminal space, although some people would argue this. Again, a liminal space is defined as “lie[ing] between the known and unknown”, (Douglas, 2014) in the case of our piece the known is the soldiers lives and the unknown is their deaths, or rather the after effects of their deaths.
Another reason for choosing the stairwell may seem a little strange…The whole area is infected by damp, therefore has this incredible musty smell that would be near impossible to recreate. Why would we want an area that smells like damp you ask? It’s simple really: people are affected by all their senses, we already have the visual element through the use of our poppies and the sound element is covered with our soundscape, by adding another sensory layer we are deepening the audiences connection to the piece, or so I believe. How? The smell of must is one of those reminiscent smells, often people will describe a musty smell as ‘smelling old’. As we are delving into the past with our piece, the smell will hopefully help the audience to feel that historical sense and realise that this all really happened.
Dewaal, J. (2011) What is Liminal Space? [Online] Available from: http://inaliminalspace.com/about/what [Accessed 05/03/2015].
Douglas, S. (2014) The Liminal Space [Online] Available from: http://www.the-liminal-space.com/index.html [Accessed 05/03/2015].