the idea of a threshold to me is always an imaginary one. the concept of boundaries and lines-to-be-crossed have always seemed arbitrary. the place where one thing ends and another begins, like the borderline of a country that follows the landscape; mountains and rivers, has always appeared too neat. this point is perhaps proved by the continual conflict between the people who inhabit these borderlands. arguments arise as to the true nationality of these peoples and often they see themselves as a nation apart.
for the pieces in threshold 6x4 I have chosen a line that is ever present but seemingly harder to cross. for me the most intriguing threshold is the one offered by the present; the fascinating levee that is built in the now, to separate the tide of the future from the deluge of the past.
we live on this threshold like the populous of a border village shaped by the masses on either side. but like a real village our delimitations are hard to pinpoint. the areas where one thing becomes another are always blurred. there is a gradual change from one thing to another, but within this gradual change there is a point where the two become a third thing. this third thing is the border itself.
on the map of time it is very easy to notice this border, to see where the past faces the future is clear, but like a traveler using a map to negotiate unfamiliar terrain the corresponding map includes points that are hard to specify
it is straightforward to comprehend that we are a product of our past and of all we once were but our present is also shaped by the future and who we imagine we may become. the possibilities that the future can throw our way affect our understanding of whom we are now as much as the realization of what we have done previously
but this cartographic version is in reality often hard to follow. the border settlement of the now is constantly under siege by its warring neighbours and the partition between past and future is constantly being redrawn, so we are left to wander the fuzzy no-mans-land of the present, never quite sure if we are stumbling into overwhelming territories of the past or inhospitable enclosure of the future
