I am interested in ideas regarding science fiction especially in film, transition, and the concept of ‘portals’ as a theme. I am also exploring ideas surrounding ‘zones’ and how they operate as liminal spaces.

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Liminality comes from the Latin word ‘limens’ which means ‘threshold.’ A threshold is a place of entering or beginning. A intersecting, transitional area, much like a portal, which is defined as a gateway, entranceway, way in or way out. I am interested in these spaces, where at times it feels like reality seems slightly altered and ambiguous, and something unexpected could happen at any moment.

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I am inspired by some of the themes and ideas surrounding science fiction film, especially that of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker. The film follows three men as they illegally enter ‘The Zone,’ a post-apocalyptic, alien no-mans-land, in which they are searching for ‘The Room,’ a place where wishes are said to come true. This ‘Zone’ is in itself a liminal, transitional space, where the unexpected is ever present, and an un-earthly presence is constantly implied. Throughout the film, this is often evoked through the landscape, as if the Zone itself was watching them, and simultaneously watching us as viewers.

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I have tried to capture these ‘zones’ or ‘portals’ as they appear in the world – liminal spaces found in nature. I photographed at twilight, the time just after sunset, when the sky is dark but the day hasn’t yet passed completely into night-time. This time of day, the ‘twilight zone’ is a liminal time period, and in popular culture, is a place where nothing is as it seems, an illusion. The science fiction television show, The Twilight Zone, describes it as “the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.”1 An in between space where nothing is as it seems.

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1 Where Is Everybody? The Twilight Zone. Directed by Robert Stevens. 1959. CBS