PCI PGR Symposium: Embracing Liminalities

With thanks to Michael Schofield for providing the above image

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Postgraduate Researchers at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries invite you to attend our symposium on Monday 23rd June 2025 in the stage@leeds building. Throughout the day, we will present papers on our ongoing research that contends with the presence of liminality in our work and in our lives as postgraduate researchers. Alongside this, we offer a performative response to this topic, exploring alternative methods of disseminating knowledge as well as our own experiences with the liminal.  Refreshments and lunch will be provided. Registration will close on Monday 2nd June.  

 

 

Morning Keynote: Lou Harvey 

 

Community circus and/as trauma-informed practice: The problem of un/sayability 

 

My talk will present findings and reflections on an interdisciplinary pilot research project co-produced with community circus charity Circus Leeds. We explored how community circus—the provision of non-professional circus skills training through community-based workshops (Sorzano 2018)—intersects with the principles of trauma-informed practice, an inclusive approach to wellbeing which recognises the prevalence of trauma and aims to avoid (re-)traumatising practices (Carter and Borrett 2023). We found that, while Circus Leeds’ practice aligns with the key principles of trauma-informed practice, the forms of knowing involved in community circus practice and circus aesthetics, and in wellbeing, are difficult to articulate in words. Consequently, we found it challenging to research circus practice using the language-centred, cognitively oriented, sayable research methods in which we have been trained, and which often underpin the evaluation of creative wellbeing outcomes. I therefore conclude with a call for, and theoretical suggestions towards, decentring the sayable and accounting for the unsayable (The May Group 2025) in the analysis of creative wellbeing projects. 

 

Group One: People and Practice in Flux 

 

Eve Walton  

Liminal People: The construction and negotiation of identities in Dungeons and Dragons. 

 

Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs) foster a uniquely liminal space, requiring players to navigate multiple overlapping identities. This presentation explores the negotiation of ludic, narrative, and social identities within Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), interrogating the ways in which players construct and shift between these roles. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Cover (2011), Mackay (2001), Goffman (1974) and Schechner (1993), I will explore the existing structures that delineate player identity, testing and challenging these with examples from actual D&D play. 

 

While game theory has conceptualised the "magic circle" as a rigid division, I present it as a porous membrane, problematising conventional distinctions between character and self and revealing how identity negotiations occur during play. Roleplay can also be explored as a subversive tool for identity exploration. Long recognised as a space for queer expression, D&D’s fluidity of character creation allows players to explore gender and sexuality in a safe space. This extends beyond escapism; rather, roleplay can act as a rehearsal for real-world identity formation, mirroring how children practice social interactions through structured play. 

 

This presentation argues that TTRPGs are a dynamic and fluid space where identities are continuously negotiated, and the boundaries of self/character and reality/play are in flux. By recognising the liminal qualities of this practice, we can better understand the potential applications of roleplay as a medium for self-discovery and expression.  

 

Hannah Wainright 

Navigating liminality: The drama studio as a place of belonging in a hostile environment 

 

The process of seeking asylum is inherently liminal – an indeterminate period of ‘betweenness’, during which sanctuary seekers exist between countries and homes, and at the edges of citizenship. This period of precarity is reinforced by UK government policies, described as ‘particularly harrowing’ (Biglin, 2021), which mark out refugees as ‘other’(O'Neill, 2017), and persistently challenge their right to belong (Ahmed, 2000). Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with sanctuary seekers participating in two local theatre projects, this paper will explore how the drama studio might come to exist as a place of belonging in the midst of this enforced liminality. Building on the work of Tim Ingold (2007), I will demonstrate how participatory theatre has facilitated the development of an entangled and knotty ‘meshwork’ of belonging for participants. The presentation will ask what it is about participatory drama specifically that has the power to support belonging amidst the uncertainties of liminality in a hostile environment. I will argue that participatory theatre offers unique opportunities for belonging, which grow from skilfully facilitated playful and joyful interactions. The paper will offer insights into how participatory theatre might act to counter enforced liminality through acts of creative community-building for those forced to live in the precarious in-between spaces of the asylum system. References Ahmed, S. 2000. Strange encounters: embodied others in post-coloniality. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Biglin, J. 2021. Photovoice accounts of third places: Refugee and asylum seeker populations' experiences of therapeutic space. Health & Place. 71, article no: Article 102663 [no pagination]. Ingold, T. 2007. Lines: a brief history. London: Routledge. O'Neill, M. 2017. Walking, well-being and community: racialized mothers building cultural citizenship using participatory arts and participatory action research. Ethical and Racial Studies. 41(1), pp.73-97. 

 

Naomi Burnley 

'Four Favourites' or 'For Likes'? A Textual Analysis of Letterboxd Reviews 

 

Letterboxd is a film-specific website and application used to track film-watching and reviewing. In the popular press, it has been viewed as the cinephile’s choice of social media (King, 2024; Waterhouse, 2025). Having seen a substantial rise in its membership since the COVID-19 pandemic (Wakeman, 2024; Goldstein, 2023; Smol, 2020; Marsh, 2021), its cult status highlights various liminalities between critical engagement, cultural production and recreation. Within cultural research, the creative outputs of fan communities have been acknowledged and understood as part of a ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins, 2008). Nonetheless, Kostakis describes the tendency of Web 2.0 platforms to exploit the free labour of amateurs in the creation of consumer content (2009). Other scholars identify this as the practice of a ‘prosumer society’, wherein digital consumers increasingly produce the content they consume (Ritzer and Jurgenson, 2010; Jaakkola, 2024). Known for its pithy one-liner reviews (Shone, 2024), Letterboxd provides an apt case study to examine these concepts as they apply to film criticism. By doing so, I will interrogate the broad consensus within its study that questions cultural democratisation, arguing that the growth of online blogging and amateur participation poses challenges to professional critical authority (McDonald, 2007; Frey, 2015; McWhirter, 2016). Through an autoethnographic textual analysis of my own reviews on Letterboxd, I will explore concepts such as generational internet residency and typographical tone of voice (McCulloch, 2019), as well as the use of memes as insider digital language (Bristow, 2019). As conceptions of the ‘reviewtainer’ emerge and hegemonic criticism is challenged by “vernacular low culture” (Jaakkola, 2024, p.196), I propose that Letterboxd presents a similar ‘short-formification’ of the critical process. That is, a complex intertextual understanding of existing viral media or cultural texts is now required to understand emerging forms of online and participatory film criticism. 

 

Group Two: Uncertain Horizons 

 

Yanyan Liu 

Dance with shackles: Chinese contemporary artists in cultural policy and creative labour discussions 

 

The Chinese creative industry appears to be rising alongside economic growth; however, the challenges faced by artists are particularly significant. They encounter many of the same issues that creatives in Western societies experience, but the distinct cultural and political environments in China present additional obstacles. In other words, they are with shackles in their daily work and lives. This presentation is my current literature review around cultural policies in cultural value perspective, and the creative labour related discussions. 

 

Nicola Hollinshead 

Creating an ‘activist character’ through the liminality of performance in Small Acts of Resistance 

 

Much has been written about the potential of the liminal space in performance. Here I explore liminality as a place for resistance, when working with women who have been marginalised, in my PhD PaR project Small Acts of Resistance. The ‘place of ‘in-between-ness (or becoming), that derives from affect theory’ (Sloan, 2018, 591) experienced in the process, provides an opportunity to create an ‘activist character’ through whom they can resist the marginalisation, stigmatisation and social abjection experienced in their everyday lives. 

 

Fang Lingxuan 

Metaverse Cultural Tourism and the Role of Uncertainty: Inhibition or Stimulus? 

 

Metaverse cultural tourism refers to tourism activities that fulfil the human desire for cultural diversity, lead to increased cultural awareness, new knowledge, experiences, and interactions within digitally generated environments. In contrast to traditional tourism, which requires physical travel, Metaverse cultural tourism allows tourists to explore digitally recreated places without being limited by location or travel constraints via virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) platforms. Metaverse cultural tourism is not only a digital extension of traditional travel; it represents an entirely new realm of cultural consumption and experience. Metaverse cultural tourism, characterised by immersive interactions, new cultural interpretations, co-creative engagement, personalised experiences, and real-time dynamics, faces various uncertainties, including uncertainty regarding authenticity, accessibility, and the effects of technology-mediated interactions. Consequently, uncertainty is often framed as an inhibition—a barrier that must be overcome to ensure stability, credibility, and user confidence. However, this study argues that uncertainty can also be perceived as a stimulus that has positive impacts on tourist behavioural intentions. In terms of consumer behaviour, Buechel and Li (2023) employed controlled experimental methodology and demonstrated that, in the context of mystery consumption, consumers preferred the uncertainty associated with horizontal differentiation (i.e., where objective outcomes are identical or similar, while subjective outcomes differ among individuals) and tended to avoid the uncertainty linked to vertical differentiation (i.e., where objective outcomes are different). Therefore, this study will adopt the horizontal uncertainty as the reference type of uncertainty. In other words, within identical objective conditions (i.e., the same VR application and experimental setting), the Metaverse cultural tourism uncertain destinations will be taken as the horizontal uncertainty factor to explore the subjective behavioural intentions of tourists. 

 

Performance Intervention: Between Two Thoughts 

Between Two Thoughts is a performance installation that explores individual and shared experiences of liminal spaces. A first-time creative collaboration between a group of PCI PGRs, the piece was devised focusing on the challenges and potential joys arising from liminality in PhD life and, more generally, in the ‘real world’. Asking “What does it feel like to be in a liminal space”, Between Two Thoughts plays with the notions of ‘waiting/lingering’, ‘absence/presence’ and ‘time vs space’, inviting the audience to be part of the exploration. 

 

Group Three: Environments of/for change 

 

Danny Casprini 

Industrial heritage as Cultural Common Goods? Unveiling co-creation of value through communing 

 

Industrial heritage is permeated with different meanings and values that contributed to shape community’s identities and that still affect post-industrial societies, despite facing issues of unwanted heritage (Citron, 2021). Transforming industrial heritage in Cultural Common Goods (CCGs) represents a valuable effort for sustainable development, enhancing the recognition of their heritage value while experimenting with community-oriented interventions (Kip & Oevermann, 2022). Commoning approaches can be considered innovative practices to attribute commons-like value to industrial sites by involving communities in conservation processes (Kip & Oevermann, 2022). Commoning facilitates the co-creation of social and cultural values and promotes co-production of social space, collective use, and self-management processes (Lijster et al., 2022). Commoning is a mean to organise local stakeholders and empower them to become heritage communities (Kip & Oevermann, 2022). The paper aims to explore how cultural commoning approaches can support the attribution of social and cultural values to former industrial sites. The research presents a case about how different forms of collaboration and selfmanagement can enhance the use value of former industrial sites contributing to the co-creation of new community narratives, leading to the recognition of cultural and heritage values of former industrial sites. Although data collection is still on-going, the research can increase knowledge about how commoning interventions can engage communities in the creation of heritage value through their engagement in conservation and re-use projects by highlighting context-specific approaches to organise communities. 

 

Georgie Hook 

The Intimate Ecologies of Home 

 

Responding to the idea of the liminal as ‘the intimate space between beings’ (Soudan 2023, p20), I explore the intimacies that shape experiences of domestic environments, and the possibilities that emerge from attending to them. Homes are sites where the interdependent relations between things, materials, bodies, atmospheres and affectivities are accrued in an everyday context. And yet, these predominantly ‘indoor’ spaces are often overlooked in discussions of ecological potential, as the physical boundaries of such spaces suggest an impermeability (Biehler and Simon 2010), whilst their ubiquity in everyday lives means they are often backgrounded. Foregrounding the ecologies of homes begins with attunement to the environment – a process I am experimenting with through scenographic methods of observation and collage image-making with research participants. As well as acknowledging the co-existence of more-than-human species, I extend attunement to the inorganic materials and objects housed within these spaces. A ticking dinosaur alarm clock becomes as intrinsic to an experience of home as the movement of trees in the breeze, visible beyond the window. The focus on embodied and sensory ways of knowing, facilitated through scenography, highlights Ahmed’s phenomenological ‘process of becoming intimate with where one is (…) becoming part of a space where one has expanded one's body’ (Ahmed 2006, p11). By fostering such processes through creative practice, and ‘cultivating an attention to the liminal’ (Soudan 2023, p29), I aim to identify imaginative possibilities regarding how domestic spaces are experienced and understood. 

 

Carolyn Bradley  

Liminal identities in school-based Drama education research 

 

This paper will discuss emerging findings from my fieldwork observing partnership projects between schools and arts organisations, with a focus on the liminal identities present in the spaces of learning in Drama. There is a significant body of literature on spaces of learning, which can be physical, metaphorical or liminal. My research takes place at the intersection between formal and informal learning; the classroom and the rehearsal room; and the school and the theatre; all liminal spaces between academy and industry. For Massey, space is not only socially-constructed but intrinsically connected to multiplicity: “without space, no multiplicity; without multiplicity, no space” (Massey, 2005, p.9). Within space, therefore, is a plurality of stories, which are constantly “under-construction” (Massey, 2005), allowing for multiple and diverse identities to not just occupy, but construct space. Bhabha also argues that space allows for multiplicity in identity, suggesting that our “through-flows” through space create “hybrid identities” (Hubbard et al., 2004, p.54), as space has a slippery quality which blurs boundaries of identity (Bhabha, 1994). Although this work had a geographical focus, there are correlations between their theory of the fluidity of space, and the multiplicity of space we see in schools. Students and staff move through the school space presenting hybrid identities as they negotiate the different spaces of social life within the school building. Theory on arts partnership projects suggests that teachers assume different roles when they engage in projects with outside organisations (Christophersen, 2013), and my research seeks to extend this further, to explore student identities in arts partnerships. This paper will present emerging findings from my pilot phase, exploring if these ‘hybrid identities’ in arts partnership projects are related to the multiplicity of space being a feature of these projects. 

 

Afternoon Keynote: Dr Michael Schofield  

Between times: Liminality as a temporal feature of haunted spaces and media 

 

Liminality and hauntology are both powerful yet nebulous and wide-ranging academic terms, which have gone on to enjoy a prolific second life as online buzzwords and the inspiration for various creepy internet aesthetics. Often synonymous with eerie and dreamlike places and spaces, the original theoretical intention of these ideas can quickly get lost in a ghostly fog of potent mood and mystification. Reflecting on the role these terms have played in my own creative practice as a landscape photographer and experimental filmmaker, over the years, this presentation will attempt to clarify what they actually mean within the work, drawing on theory by Derrida, Fisher, Turner, Augé and Lefebvre. 

 

Many of the places I visit and make work about are disused or seemingly emptied of the human. They are haunted by a profound sense of absence. Often named “liminal spaces” within common discourse, the role of transition in them is often not properly explicated. The threshold in question is always temporal, so looking at the role of time is crucial to understanding them. The unnerving defamiliarization of space occurs because it appears stuck between two different time periods, one still actively haunting the other. They are eerie because the transition is not complete - or maybe cannot complete. Photography and other media play a role in this haunting affect too, because they can create or emphasise the same uncanny phenomenon – a temporal disjuncture seemingly freezing space between differing times, between the living and the dead.