Works > The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi)

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 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. Through the project we ask: what might shift in our understanding of and relationship with geology, and geological time, if we imagine ourselves both poetically and materially as part of the rock cycle?

Building on a research residency in 2018 hosted by Akiyoshidai International Art Village, over 18 months I developed a new cross-disciplinary project between Scotland and Japan with curator Naoko Mabon. My mobile research residency focused on field work in remote geological sites such as Akiyoshidai – a Quasi National Park in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which has the highest concentration of karst formations in Japan and Akiyoshido, the nation’s largest and longest limestone cave. We visited geological, historical, and contemporary sites across Yamaguchi. At a local Marble Quarry, I saw fossils made of marble, observing the transformation of material from coral to limestone and onwards. In the ancient copper mine at Naganobori, I witnessed small seams in the carbonate rock where minerals grew and formed in a dynamic relationship. At Akiyoshido, we spoke with a speleologist who explained that even your breath impacts how stalactites grow inside a cave – a bio-geological relationship. 

We began to focus on two distinct but inter-related branches of exploration. On the one hand we had been looking at time and processes of formation, to relate in new ways to the karst formations of Akiyoshido. On the other hand, we had been looking at a more ‘aerial’ narrative and poetic response to the idea of the calcium rock cycle of Akiyoshidai, and the vast diversity of materials and life forms, which are part of this deep time family. We began to research the development of new work, which would incorporate coral, limestone, marble, malachite, copper – all materials which form different stages within the calcium rock cycle. We also began to consider the wider geological processes that formed Yamaguchi. These lines of enquiry manifested in three interlinked solo exhibitions across Akiyoshidai in 2019, and formed core elements in our exhibition The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi) at the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney in 2022.