tim lytvinenko

Memory

2019

Mixed media photo transfers on to canvas

Liminality was first used to describe rites of passage where the participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous self and a new self. This generally happens in three steps: event, change, rebirth.

The phase of change, or liminal period, can be destructive. Participants are often brought to question their self where the normal constraints to thought, self understanding and behavior are undone. Allowing for large amounts of change in small amounts of time.

The third phase, Postliminal, by nature is constructive. Often seen as a rebirth back into society, postliminal phases try to make sense of the changes. Questioning memories, limits and equilibriums, the participant finds this new self. Knowing they could not have become this without being their previous self first.

“Memory is the means by which we draw on our past experiences in order to use this information in the present.” – Robert J. Sternberg

Memory:

1a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms 

b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism’s activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition  

2a : a particular act of recall or recollection 

b : an image or impression of one that is remembered  

c : the time within which past events can be or are remembered 

3 : a capacity for showing effects as the result of past treatment or for returning to a former condition