Geologic Intimacy (Yu no Hana), 2017 James Hutton (parent material), 2017

This series of prints was made by Ilana Halperin in collaboration with curator Naoko Mabon, as part of a geothermal project between Scotland and the Japanese island of Kyushu. The prints are developed employing experimental processes and field work in combination with traditional print-based methods. In collaboration with Michael Waight, the Master Printmaker at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, Halperin developed this new series utilising Yame Washi paper – the oldest Japanese handmade paper in Kyushu which can last 1,000 years – in combination with hot spring minerals she collected in Beppu and four Scottish soils, donated by The James Hutton Institute.

Beppu, in Japan, is the second most geothermally active place on Earth (after Yellowstone, US), housing amongst others a geothermal pool called Bloody Pond Hell, a pool as red as blood. The Scottish soils were sourced from Slighhouses Farm in the Scottish Borders. This is the place where James Hutton, the ‘father of modern geology’, farmed and began to formulate radical ideas about the age of the earth and deep geological time.  

Ilana Halperin (US)
°1973

Ilana Halperin is an artist, originally from New York, and currently based in Glasgow. Her work deals with geological intimacy, vivacity, and the uncanny fact that something as apparently inert and certain as stone was once liquid, airborne, ash and alive. For over twenty years her work has explored the relationship between geology and daily life. She has boiled milk in a 100 degree Celsius sulphur spring; talked with geologists inside a lava tube inhabited by life-affirming bacteria; formed sculptures in caves and hot springs; spent time with geology collections formed inside the body; and held the Allende Meteorite, the oldest known object in the solar system.

In her practice, Halperin works with earth scientists, in natural history collections, in the studio and in remote geological field environments. Recent solo exhibitions include Geologic Intimacy (Yu no Hana), Fujiya Gallery, Beppu, Japan; The Library, National Museum of Scotland; Steine, Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité; Hand Held Lava, Schering Stiftung, Berlin and Physical Geology (slow time), Artists Space, New York. She was Artist-Curator of geology for Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery, in the birthplace of Charles Darwin. The Library of Earth Anatomy, a permanent commission at The Exploratorium in San Francisco has recently opened. Schering Stiftung, Berlin published a monograph of her work entitled New Landmass. Ilana shares her birthday with the Eldfell volcano in Iceland.