threshold zine

announcement ⋆˚꩜｡ the threshold team have been busy behind the scenes finding ways to get the first issue out into the world! after wrapping up our contributing artists posts we can officially announce that you can buy threshold zine from the link in our bio! the online shop is officially open and you can grab threshold issue 1: contamination for £5 grab one whilst we still have them! limited availability ᯓ★ˎˊ˗

Bonded Together for Now (2025) Holly Holmes [wool, cotton & bamboo]

Rachel is a Portsmouth-based, genre-blurring writer who focuses on themes of spectrality, hauntology and ecocide. The Wrath of Water explores water as a physical life-form – one that might be seen as a force of malevolence in its wilfulness and defiance of humans’ perpetual attempts to control and commodify it, to trap it and tame it. How it might be seen to be executing a revenge of sorts, to a troubled mind plagued by ghosts and the niggly frustrations of everyday urban life and solastalgia, resulting in a mental or metaphorical drowning. The extractive relationship between human and water exists in a perennial state of duality – we, the contaminators, are also the contaminated. And water, then, is seen as both victim of our contamination of it and perpetrator of disruption and destruction of our own lives. You can read The Wrath of Water in threshold zine. Thank you R C Birchley for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Hong Kong: A Study in Material, Memory, and Place Mia Upton’s woven series explores the idea of contamination—not as destruction, but as transformation. Her work examines how time, memory, and material interact, blurring the boundaries between past and present, permanence and impermanence, value and waste. Created from cashmere using soft black and white-cream yarn sourced from industry waste, these intricate woven compositions embody the contamination of tradition by modernity, and of material by history. In a world of fast consumption and rapid erasure, her practice highlights how memory, place, and material are never untouched, but always in flux—continuously altered, reshaped, and contaminated by time. Thank you Mia Upton for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Romilly Frances (b. 2003) is an interdisciplinary artist, predominantly combining sculpture, installation, and performance. She is currently based in the West Midlands of England. Fascinated by the undefined and the disembodied, Frances approaches materials and objects as being infused with information and memory. She combines different disciplines to create a synthesised understanding of the human condition - making without the expectation to provide answers, but to elicit questions, about what it means to inhabit a female body in the modern zeitgeist. Two Body Problem (2025) grapples with what it means to inhabit a body in an age of extinction, interrogating the boundaries between the fleshy and the ecological body - the one you inhabit every day, and the one you are always be implicated in but may never truly understand. The fusion of sculpture, moving image, and performance explores the notion of these two bodies morphing, bending, becoming inseparable. What does it mean to have two bodies? Two Body Problem manifests at the boundaries between these two entities, their instabilities, and their dualities. Thank you Romilly Horton for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

splanchnic innards and leaky boundaries (2023) is a wearable sculpture that ruptures the confines of the body and skin, liquefying its borders into grotesque seepage. Flesh spills outward - an oozing disembodiment that erodes the line between the self and other. Permeable, unstable, it dissolves the body’s edges until only leakage remains. Milo Moores (b.2003, London) is a dynamic multidisciplinary artist, primarily working within sculpture and installation. He currently lives and works in Gloucestershire, England. Thank you Milo Moores for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Bad Painting 383: Chanting “Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus!” 122 x 153 cm, oil on canvas, June 2024 This Bad Painting is based on real events. In bars and party venues across Germany, people have been chanting “Deutschland den Deutschen, Ausländer raus!” (“Germany for Germans, foreigners out!”) to the melody of L’amour toujours, a 1999 dance hit by Gigi D’Agostino. The chant has spread widely, filmed and shared online, turning a club classic into a soundtrack for racism. Here, the scene is ordinary - drink, music, togetherness - yet poisoned by the words. The painting fixes this moment: hatred shouted as entertainment, cruelty disguised as fun. It’s not distant history, it’s happening now. Thank you Jay Rechsteiner for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Are you bored with Western scientific practices? Do you wish there was more compassion in lab work? HOW TO MAKE SLIME MOLD LAUGH is an innovative project birthed from the Bauhaus DIY Biolab. After an initial interest in physarum polycephalum, we [Marleen and Amy], stumbled across an article titled “Electrocute Slime Mold Long Enough and it’ll apparently make music”. Why is our first instinct to electrocute things? We decided that the slime mold was probably screaming... Why not instead of making them scream we could make them laugh? What does posthuman humour look like? ifuseekamy (b. 1999) is a transdisciplinary artist enchanted by that which lies below; looking to the earth for soily solutions. The foundations of their practice begin with radical empathy, as they are unafraid to question, poke and prod limiting beliefs inherited by various institutional structures. Marleen Kölmel is a photographer who moves across disciplines with a focus on expressions and gestures. On atmospheres and strings in-between. She engages with her work in a process-based way. With sensitivity to understand, visualize, experiment with and reimagine. In her artistic practice she is interested in being approachable and combines it in her work as an art mediator. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Media Arts & Design at Bauhaus University.

Wang Wei is an artist with a background in printmaking and drawing, her work examines ritual, sacred space, and personal devotion through visual practice. This series of sculptures extends her ongoing exploration of ritual, memory, and transformation, while drawing on references such as Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne. Her central idea is the conservation of energy in nature: over infinite time and countless material exchanges, humans will inevitably integrate with the natural world. Each sculpture becomes a condensed record of this process. While continuing her use of pure white as a primary aesthetic, she introduces new elements such as variations in flower form and size, the symbolism of floral language, and subtle facial expressions. Together, these elements combine into a complete set of works. Thank you Wang Wei for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Evans’ transdisciplinary practice is characterised by her sensual exploration into the expanded field of painting, confronting the medium which she finds herself monotonously committed to. Through the physical manipulation of waste materials, she constructs large-scale draped formations which interrogate and penetrate the medium. Revolving around her methodology of desire, Evans’ practice sits in the space between wanting and possessing as she seeks to express her obsessive desire for the side of a lorry. Her works, constructed with intuition, compulsion, and lust, are in essence, desire made manifest. Key awards/exhibitions include: Nominated for the New Blood Art Emerging Art Prize 2025, awarded the RSA David Michie Travel Award 2025, a place in my heart (solo exhibition at The Pipe Factory, Glasgow, 2024), The lover (solo exhibition at Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock, 2025), and I DARE YOU TO LOVE ME (solo exhibition at Strange Field, Glasgow, 2025) Lilian’s text ‘the lovers ailment’ can be read in threshold zine Thank you Lilian Evans for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

Amy Noonan’s practice is at its core an exploration of the power of indexical signifiers of human presence. Their work utilises the motifs of traces left by ancient, unknowable human beings throughout history and the natural materials they would have used, namely beeswax, chalk and unfired clay, as a carrier for the traces of a modern audience and Noonan themself. Drawing on physical touch connection necessitated by the index, Noonan seeks to build a closeness to our humanity, transcending modern convention, through a record of touch. Noonan creates art imbued with a materiality that is a witness to presence, seeking to create works for an audience to physically and cognitively connect to what has come before. Thank you Amy for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯

A Frankenstein, a Culture of Hybrid Fungi, a Fleshbound Collage—my identity is a clashing, merging symbiosis of cultural influences, embodying ideas of cultural contamination. Where Was Home Again? is an installation performance that explores the unstable fusion of cultures that shape the spaces I exist in. The work navigates ideas of identity, belonging, and communication, drawing from personal experiences of living in the UK and growing up as a Chinese local in Hong Kong within a Western international school system. The performance, spanning three hours over the course of three days, I—the performer—am hidden within a hollowed-out sofa, while a speaker, using stethoscope software, plays my live heartbeat. Acting as a contaminat, the performance is an interruption of spatiality. The sofa’s internal presence disrupts the usual mode of living, a reflection of my own perspectives as a foreign body in a country. The sofa, a place of comfort and socializing found in most homes, is found in an gallery, which breaks the former mode turning it into a space of discomfort and isolation. The site becomes a a place of tension when juxtaposed with my presence as a performer. Acting in discomfort, reflects my internal conflict with living in the UK, and the complexities of navigating a sense of home—as someone who belongs fully to neither Hong Kong nor the United Kingdom. Please credit Photography by Hanna Selmeci, with photo editing by Ivan Chang. Thank you 曾韋嵐 Ivan Wai Laam Chang for being part of our first ever issue: 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯