The Liminal Research Society is a collective that evolved out of a series of meetings and happening in Toronto, Canada in 2014. We wanted to experiment with organizational culture and to create a totally immersive environment. We designed meetings that functioned as literary salons. we shared speeches, lectures and performances, we facilitated group discussions. In addition to this we guided participants through a series of ice-breaking activities, and unorthodox team-building exercises where they were invited to share deeply personal narratives with themselves and with each other.

As the group was forming, projects were designed including outreach initiatives to protest the banalization of community and to offer further opportunities to create novelty in the lives of the participants. The thread running through these happenings was that while these events were contrived, and while the team building exercises were spoofing existing ones typically used in a corporate setting, they continued to function and impress upon participants, such that a group was forming.

This project eventually culminated in the “Art Haus of Kathmandu, where two founding members of the Toronto group opened a community house and creative studio in Nepal. The first house was outside Melamchi, Sindhupalchowk in a rural region by a river. The goal was to create a retreat for international artists to live, work, and offer workshops for local youth. This first house was destroyed entirely in the earthquake of April 2015, and after a summer of providing relief and aid, the house was relocated and reopened in Kathmandu in September.

The following year saw a vibrant community of artists and musicians passing through the house, which hosted performances, a salon series, as well as organizing exhibitions by partnering with local galleries. The collective that formed out of the space also created touring music and theatre performances that would trek through rural villages in Sindhupalchowk performing at schools and offering workshops. The house and series of novel excursions succeeded in establishing close bonds between the participants and planting the seeds of the international collective. Management of the house was passed on to local musician and photographer, David Lama as the founding members moved on and moved out of Nepal. Sadly, through his mismanagement the lease of the house was lost, and the project was shut down.

While sporadic meetings in Toronto continued under the banner of “Blatantism, The Liminal Research Society was forming in Paris, following the meeting of an American artist, with a member of Toronto who had followed a romantic interest from Kathmandu to Paris in September 2016. Discussion ensued about the role of community as a bulwark against the atomization and alienation of contemporary, urban, and digitized living.

This notion was then considered with the view of art history as one passing through a series of trends or movements considered to embody the zeitgeist of each corresponding generation. As young artists exploring the landscape of fine art, and contemporary practice, the assertion was naturally made that prevailing trends and motifs within contemporary practice seem to promote and normalize the modern malaise and alienation, and position themselves as the antithesis to what is now surmised as Blatantist Thought.

The following years between 2016-2018 led the creation of a series of events inspired by Dada, and appropriately called “The Cabaret Voltaire”. A small group of artists was formed out of these events, and while community space was a constant challenge, a group known as the Liminal Research Society was founded with the intention of furthering the original Blatantist project while distancing itself from the previous experiments with coercive programming.

Today the LRS has a small committed membership with active artists based in Kathmandu, Paris, London, Toronto, and New York. The next steps involves annual group retreats, “awareness campaigns, and the building of a community internet radio stream.