Liminality

Artist Statement

LIMINALITY was photographed on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, using a converted full spectrum camera and an infrared filter, which shows the health of plants, thriving on the misty Isle. The series reinstates Scotland’s mythological fairies as a statuesque powerful goddesses, rather than the diminutive fairies that were later written into stories such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the 1500s. The series considers the myth of Cailleach who created the mountains with fire and carved them with ice, and depicts this with blood like feminine forms. 



It is said that the mountaintops, streams and glens, that we hiked and depicted
 in this series, are liminal places where people can still commune with
 the fairies. Here, in these liminal places, the far and near fold into each other, so that time creases and overlaps.

The poems, which speak to the power of feminine earth formations, will be engraved by hand on blood red soapstone (found naturally on the Isle of Skye), anchoring the text in the earth. Together, the words examine the liminal places pictured in Kate's photographs, calling on us to consider the spaces where time bends, and warps. Where borders pucker. Where the line between the near and far wears thin, like a thinning cloud. We cross over. 

Poetry by Dylin Hardcastle

MOUNTAIN I 

Sun falls. Landing 

like birth-marks, Mottled 

pink red, fraying 

at the edges, Lighter 

there. Here, darker. 

In blood soaked rivulets. 

MOUNTAIN II 

She opens us her body 

So that mountains may breathe 

Rain spilling from her veins 

It flows across their skin 

Down into grooves unspoken 

Of stones unturned it pools 

In the pink red underland 

Exhale, Mountain, inhale. 

SKYE AIR 

Skye air is thick muscle, twitching. Pulsing white. 

Rippling the veil of the faraway nearby. See it, there. 

IMMORTELLES 

Papery glass, 

severed at the 

stem. Dried between 

pages. Ancient edge. 

Red pink petals. 

Holding shape. The 

Mountain lives 

like nothing dies 

like breathing deep. 

Icy Immortelles. 

FAIRY POOLS 

Stories of old worlds 

spill like blood draining, 

swirling together in 

soft ancient red. The 

fairy pools hold the 

words like watery 

libraries. Rushing 

cold over white stone. 

DOWN INTO 

We descend down her throat 

into her dark body. 

Damp rock walls and frilled moss 

Green hairs are whisper thin, 

swaying with her breath. We 

bathe in her cool, fresh heart.