A “Wall of Manhattan”-Liminal Theater
Critic-Diane Lewis
for
role
status
year
The Cooper Union
Student
Project
1988
Liminal: from the greek “limen” for threshold, to be at the threshold. Liminal entities are neither here nor there. They are betwixt an between positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention. Liminality is frequently likened to being in the womb, to invisibility. darkness and to the eclipse of the sun and moon.
Consider that a wall divides/connects, is inclusive/exclusive, establishes opposition/creates dialogue. that a wall is “Janusian”, that it is itself an in-between and so intrinsically connective: a joint through which differences are articulated and irreconcilables resolved. in differnentiating here and there by posing itself as both and neither it is suspended, to be “in the wall”, to be liminal, is to have tunneled, passed over(bridged), or passed through, to have transgressed and so to be suspended and in a state of becoming.
The site is the west wall of Morning Side Park by Fredrich Olmstead between 116th and 118th streets, a constructed masonry wall built on top of a natural cliff face which divides Harlem and the Columbia university campus, a geographic as well as a socio-economic barrier.
First the wall is revealed to be two-sided through an excavation along the west face, exposing a natural park edge onto columbia. The proposal of a “Liminal Theater” acts as an insertion wherby the former fortified retaining wall is raplaced by a filter, a habitable threshold where inhabitants of the adjacent communities can commune in a theater devoted to promoting cultural exchange.
