St: Exploring Auckland’s St James Theatre As Liminal Space and Picturesque Ruin Using Photography, Letterforms, and Book Design.

Abstract

This practice-led artistic inquiry explores the relationship between letterforms and place. It asks the question: How can letterforms and book design conventions express the phenomenological experience of the eerie urban ruin? The conceptual framework for this research is of the ruin as liminal space sparking imagination and fascination. It embraces the Romanticism historically associated with ruins. St is framed as creative response to the experience of the ruin, centred around letterforms which emphasise the eerie through the interplay of negative and positive space. The resulting decorative alphabet references historic initial letters and illuminated manuscripts. This decorative alphabet is supported by a publication which investigates the history of the St James Theatre and its current derelict state using documentary photography and archival materials. The resulting work integrates text, image and story-telling, elevating letters to the Sublime, alongside architecture and humanity’s other artistic creations which the St James Theatre represents.