Water Lillies (Liminal Animism)

Linda Briskin

Water Lilies is from the series Liminal Animism (10 images). The masks of Venice are layered within photographs of nature. The photo-collages suggest a liminal space (a place of transition with an unstable border), a fluid crossover between the imagined and the real, the natural and the constructed, the authentic and the fabricated. Liminal Animism embraces ambiguity and invents an alternative reality. Similarly to Alice’s Wonderland, in Liminal Animism everything is slightly off and nothing is what it seems. Them, through illusions, some truths are revealed.

These works re-imagine Venetian masks and nature itself, not through what is seen, but through what is imagined. Liminal Animism, then, is not about capturing images but about inventing them—an imagined reality which is fictive rather than representational.

In a time of widespread masking against Covid, it is intriguing to consider the rich history of masking in Venice which dates back to the thirteenth century. Venetian masks are a sophisticated and quintessential form of art and artifice. They harken back to the original meaning of artifice—a skilled piece of workmanship—and also speak to the contemporary understanding of artifice as fakery, deception, and trickery. Although associated with Carnival, in the seventeenth century, Venetians wore masks in public for six months of the year. The wearing of masks was associated with disguise. “Secrecy was prized and self-revelation not always prudent” (Johnson, Venice Incognito). But in the rigid social hierarchy of Venice, masks also created “an appearance of equality, eased the interaction of social classes, permitted women to go out unescorted, and allowed beggars to conceal their shame.” (https://noma.org/behind-mask-18th-century-venice/). Venetian masks both reveal and conceal.

Linda Briskin is a fine art photographer. She is intrigued by the permeability between the remembered and the imagined, and the ambiguities in what we choose to see. She has a passion for nature and for ephemeral images. She has participated in numerous group shows and recently, her photographs have been published in Canadian Camera (2020), Tiny Seed Literary Journal (2019) and Burningword Literary Journal (2019).