The theme for Nowhere 2013 was liminality. I loved the theme, it was also the one I voted on. But at the same time a hard one to do art around. In retrospect, looking at what Nowhere meant for me, it fits like a glove. As I wrote in my earlier posts about Nowhere, Lost and found, it was a life changing experience. It seems so distant already, even though it was only a month ago, but before Nowhere I was a different person the I am now.

As Wikipedia explains liminality:

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.

This makes complete sense to me, there were a few moments at Nowhere this year where I felt lost, didn’t know whether I was happy or sad, or better, I was both at the same time. And after the event, more precisely while staying for strike, I could clearly feel a difference feel the difference with being at the same place, among the same people not more than a week before, doing build.

And thinking further on this, Nowhere, what it did for me and how it fits a bigger picture, I realise that this transformation was definitely set in at Nowhere 2012, where the theme was Rebirth Earth. Last year I was reborn as a Nobody and this year I passed the threshold and transformed myself into full Nobody adulthood. What this all means in the long run, I don’t know yet, but I can say it is pretty exciting.