Why are we drawn to the places we are not meant to linger? An underpass after dark. An empty office awaiting demolition. A railway bridge between neighbourhoods. A deserted shopping centre, an overgrown path or a house standing abandoned with traces of its former occupants still inside. These are places in transition: caught between destinations, purposes or identities. Some are designed only to be passed through. Others have lost the function they once possessed but have not yet become something new. Often described as liminal, they can feel thrilling, melancholy and full of possibility, but also curiously unsettling. In this talk, psychologist, writer and photographer Dr Steph Lay explores why abandoned and in-between places exert such a powerful hold over the imagination.