Edinburgh
Ilana Halperin shares a birth year with a volcano. This unusual fact may at first appear whimsical, even silly, but to use an appropriately geological term, it forms the bedrock of “What is Us and What is Earth” (on view through May 17, 2026), an exhibition of sculpture, painting, and photography by the Glasgow-based, New York-born artist. Halperin’s practice offers a meditation on human and geological life spans, melding our fleeting years on this planet with the vastness of deep time. In bringing the two together, she suggests that they are one and the same, that our relationship with the world we briefly inhabit is defined by connection rather than separateness.
If that sounds like a heavy load for any artist’s work to bear, Halperin’s carries it lightly. The volcano—Eldfell, which erupted into existence on the Icelandic island of Heimaey on January 23, 1973—is introduced in 20 Years of Eldfell (30-50) (2023), a triptych of hand-written text and two delicate watercolors of a glowing lava bomb and layered yellow “birthday” cake. “Eldfell and I are the same age,” Halperin writes. “In 2003 I turned 30 and visited Eldfell for the first time…” She goes on to describe her “pact” with Eldfell, to produce “a life-long project exploring what it means to share your life with a volcano.” Weaving in personal challenges of family sickness and death, trying to have a child, and dealing with grief, she juxtaposes the fragile and the permanent, the solid and the mutable. Nearby, a volcanic rock ejected during Eldfell’s formative eruption is displayed on the wall in a Plexiglas case. This object, now titled Self Portrait as a Lava Bomb (1973/2019), was gifted to Halperin by an Icelandic professor of anthropology; his childhood home was destroyed by the volcano.
A much earlier work, Boiling Milk (Solfataras) (1999), shows Halperin, the hood of her red cagoule pulled up and a tiny copper pan in one hand, stooping down to heat milk over a geothermal lake. This simple, subtly performative act of bringing the smallness of everyday things into dialogue with the powerful forces of nature also plays a key role in Halperin’s sculptural process. Using nature as a collaborator, her slight, light-touch interventions yield beguiling results that place human activity within a geological timeline.
For Physical Geology (cave cast/slow time) (2008–09), she harnessed the unique properties of the limestone caves of Fontaines Pétrifiantes de Saint-Nectaire in France—where a stalactite can grow one centimeter in a year, rather than taking the usual 100 years. An initial series of copperplate etchings were transformed into 3D resin models and then rubber molds, which were subsequently placed in the caves for the limestone-rich water to pass over. After nine months, the molds were broken open to reveal “grown” sculptures of Halperin’s etchings depicting trace fossils, naturally occurring crystal forms, and trapped air bubbles. Eight of the creamy-brown rectangular tablets are displayed in a line on simple brass stands. Their fronts almost look machined, the clean lines interrupted by delicate sculptural reliefs; their backs reveal the uneven surfaces created by natural calcification.
The Rock Cycle (Spring, Summer, Autumn) (2021/2026), consisting of an array of terra-cotta bricks and drainage tiles left in the springs of Fontaines Pétrifiantes for three months, employed the same process. Displayed on a low, square plinth, these human-made objects now coated in limestone are softened into a semblance of unearthed ancient pottery and fragments of smooth stone. Close by on a shelf made from Scottish sycamore are what at first seem to be six slivers of volcanic rock. The title reveals the reality: Monogenetic Volcanoes Travelling Across the Surface of Hagi Pottery (2022). Made in collaboration with a Japanese Hagi ware artist, the rippled surface patterning is laser engraved and represents “micro volcanic eruptions.” It’s a work that encapsulates Halperin’s narrative of us and the earth—a craft associated with the domestic sphere in a whispering conversation with shifting tectonic plates and boiling magma.
