ABSTRACT
This practice-based PhD thesis conducts an examination of the concept of liminality applicable to a specific border area between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland known as the Gap of the North. The Gap of the North emerged and is situated within a naturally occurring geological formation of mountains and hills; this ‘gap’ has become a precursor for much contention throughout the history of the island.
The border on the island of Ireland is a deeply political product of partition; it is integral and symptomatic of the complexities of the Irish/Northern Irish narrative. Here, the Gap of the North is used to explore the ontological insecurities of the postcolonial terrain of Ireland/Northern Ireland. The concepts of absence and presence are at the centre of this discussion and extend to include the temporal complexity of the border area through the theoretical concepts of hauntology and liminality.
The Gap of the North becomes a catalyst for site-responsive practice. My practice is discursive and fragmentary; intuitive responses, affective motivations, and the influential role of memory have assisted in the creation of a range of artworks and writing. The contribution is a photo-essay with selected text (subjective text from diasporic interludes/site-writing). The images are selected from short films titled ‘Home’ and ‘Am: bush’. ‘Home’ explores circular migrancy for the returning and departing diasporic subject, whilst ‘Am: bush’ encapsulates memory through material remains evidenced on the landscape, where the Gap becomes a haunted, spectral, and uncanny site. These specific works are an attempt to make visible the psychological and physical state of ‘liminality’.
