Thresholds Collection

Updated: 7 hours ago

Sunday 26 April 2026

Maps of who we are and where we're becoming.

// METADATA

// WHAT

The fourth collection in the STORIES series
32 abstract maps paired with haiku
Each one a coordinate for a threshold many of us navigate
Maps of the liminal: approach and arrival, crossing and dissolution, the known self and the self not yet navigated
32 fictive voices. 32 passages. Each one mid-journey

// HOW

Hand-drawn, hand-painted in gouache on A5 cotton rag. Bold linework, vibrant colour, the warmth of a hand-made process
Each work digitised and minted as an individual 1/1 NFTs on objkt.com
Each map draws from the visual grammar of urban geography (grids, linework, coastlines, boundaries) then departs into pure abstraction
Each piece paired with a haiku: 17 syllables. Three lines. An entire crossing compressed to its essential gesture

// WHY

Maps impose order on complexity. They flatten the sphere, force the messy world into grids and projections, and assign a category and colour code
They promise certainty, coordinates, the comfort of knowing where you are and offer territories
For many of us, the territory remains uncharted. Gender, vocation, belief, immigration status, any passage where the internal contradicts the external
This collection reminds us the official legend doesn’t always match the journey
It reveals the experience of passage itself may become the only reliable evidence of transit

// INSIDE

Voices of 32 parafictional speakers speak to transitions of childhood, belief, gender, vocation, death, immigration, identity, separation, and many more
Others reference partnership, aging, loss. A recognition that the territory of transition may not have been accurately mapped
Some describe bodies that exist beyond categorical systems, coordinates that don't resolve to any projection
Others recall deprecated maps they navigated by, routes that medical records don't document, passages where the legend simply stops
Non-linear by design: each piece complete, gaining resonance in constellation with others

// CONTEXT

Thresholds is the first of two companion collections: Transitions follows in July 2026, pairing abstracted portraits with conversational fragments. Together, Thresholds and Transitions will form a shared representation of the transitional state of our lives. The compressed truth and the conversational unfolding
It is the first to move beyond one or two named individuals into a constellation of 32 different voices: Shane, Mason, Jamie, Alex, Casey, Amara, Sam, Morgan, Kai, Riley, Jesse, Nikolai, Hayden, Priya, Cameron, Reese, Devon, Weilong, Rowan, Lindsey, Erika, Peyton, Elliot, Kiara, Finley, Bindi, Keith, Jude, Dylan, Wesley, Harper, and Ramsay.
These invented personas have inhabited my studio for over a year. They reflect experiential accounts shaped by research, community knowledge, and lived experience
Where Leo & Neil and Emily & Sarah follow specific relationships, and Behind Closed Doors revealed 35 separate lives, Thresholds represents liminal transitional boundaries. Everyone mid-passage, no one arrived

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- Craig / Artipodean

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