In Between Lines is a participatory performance that explores the layered and relational nature of identity through mirrored interaction. Two participants stand face to face, separated by a transparent glass sheet, and draw each other's faces directly onto the surface—creating overlapping portraits that visually and metaphorically blend perspectives. This intimate, quiet act transforms the glass into a threshold: at once a divider and a connector. It embodies the invisible yet persistent barriers—cultural, social, psychological—that shape how we perceive ourselves and others.
The performance invites participants into a shared space of recognition and projection, where the roles of observer and observed continuously shift. In this co-created act, the glass becomes more than a surface; it is a site of negotiation, where dualities dissolve into a hybrid presence. The layered drawings speak to the complexity of identity—revealing how it is not singular or fixed, but formed through interaction, proximity, and perception.
Informed by Richard Schechner’s concept of restored behavior, the act of drawing becomes a re-enactment of culturally coded gestures—seen in acts of portraiture, intimacy, and self-presentation—repeated and reframed through performance. Each new participant embodies gestures from the past, making the moment simultaneously personal and collective, improvised and inherited. This repetition invites reflection on how identity is enacted and remembered across time and bodies.
The experience also unfolds within a liminal space, as described by Victor Turner—a threshold state where transformation is possible. The glass mediates this in-between zone: neither fully separating nor fully uniting, it suspends the participants in a moment of ambiguity and potential. Here, identity is in flux, shaped between gazes, shaped by the mutual act of tracing and being traced.
As individuals move through cities, cultures, and shifting social contexts, they adapt, merge, and transform. In Between Lines becomes an intimate exploration of shifting identity—an embodiment of the in-between, where identity is constantly reimagined through contact and exchange. It invites us to consider identity as a fluid, co-created process, one that exists not in isolation but in the shared space between bodies, gazes, gestures, and time.
