A recent chapter of The Rock Cycle draws Yamaguchi, Japan and the Orkney Islands in Scotland together to consider new ways of imagining our relationship to the natural world.
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A recent chapter of The Rock Cycle draws Yamaguchi, Japan and the Orkney Islands in Scotland together to consider new ways of imagining our relationship to the natural world. The project culminated in an exhibition at the Pier Arts Centre curated by Naoko Mabon, developed both in Japan during an artist residency in Akiyoshidai – an area of geological significance in Yamaguchi, as well as during field research and public programming in 2019 hosted by Yamaguchi University, along with field work in Orkney in 2022. Works by artists Yoshihisa Nakano and Keijiro Suzuki also featured within the exhibition.
The project draws inspiration from the rock cycle, where each chapter within the project represents a different stage within the cycle, though a subtle artistic intervention introduces the idea of ‘life’ – or a biological stage in the process. Through the project we ask – what might shift in our understanding of and relationship with geology and geological time as a whole, if we imagine ourselves both poetically and materially as part of the rock cycle?
As the Rock Cycle has grown and evolved, I feel even more deeply aware of the ways we are part of a deep time family which extends into the remote past and future – a calcium carbonate family tree stretching from stromatolites, fusulina and ammonites to molluscs, sirenians, starfish, coral and fish, to limestone, marble, our teeth and bones. Mountains and rocks, which remind us they are the product of the living, can become reanimated again, an infinite source of narratives, deeply embedded in our connected identities. As we are carbonate life forms, can looking more closely at our geologic neighbours, traces of former life that live in proximity, help us to connect in felt, material and corporeal ways to our place in the deep time story – help us to care about our deep time family?
Project Narratives
Images 1-7
The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi), Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 2022
This sculptural assemblage draws primarily calcium carbonate material from Yamaguchi, Japan and Scotland together, to consider new ways of imagining our relationship to the natural world. The rock cycle is a geological concept that describes how rocks change from one type to another through geologic time. Rocks also evolve from life to stone. We are part of a deep time calcium carbonate family tree. This project draws inspiration from the rock cycle, where each chapter within the project represents a different stage within the cycle, though a subtle artistic intervention introduces the idea of ‘life’ – or a biological stage in the process taking us from coral, to limestone, marble, our teeth and bones.
Images 8 – 14
Ilana Halperin, in collaboration with Kiyoshi Yamato, Meizengama Pottery Studio
Monogenetic Volcanoes Travelling Across the Surface of Hagi Pottery, 2022
Laser engraved Hagi pottery with silica glaze and rippled Scottish sycamore
Hagi is an ancient volcanic area, known for its monogenetic volcanoes – or volcanoes which erupt only once. Volcanoes are embedded into the 400 year history of Hagi pottery, through lava, clay and more. Halperin worked on these pieces in collaboration with Kiyoshi Yamato, a Hagi ware artist at Meizengama Pottery Studio in Yamaguchi. Halperin and Yamato share an interest in the behaviours of minerals like mica and other silicates, and embarked on a collaborative series of Hagi pottery sculptures with laser engraved drawings, inspired by imagining a laser travelling across a surface of silica glaze – micro volcanic eruptions as sculptural process. Laser engraving enacted at Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio. A bespoke Scottish sycamore shelf was fabricated by LightlyWest, embedding the floating volcanic islands of Hagi in conversation with the land and sea of Orkney.