Ilana Halperin’s exhibition ‘What is Us and What is Earth’ is currently running at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh, from February 27th until May 17th.
I find whenever I wander into the Fruitmarket it’s always unintentional, something eye-catching drawing me in, but I’ve never been disappointed with my decision. This time, I found Ilana Halperin’s exhibition ‘What is Us and What is Earth’, unearthing a new interest with what lies, grows and moves beneath – and amongst us.
Ilana’s most recent exhibit, available at the Fruitmarket in Edinburgh, explores geology through the human experience, connecting our lives with the earth’s movements. The mixture of illustrations, photographs and sculptures creates an image of geological time, as human time. Halperin celebrates her birthdays over the years alongside Eldfell, a volcanic cone in Iceland.
The collection includes letters written as if to an old friend and details meetings of a similar nature.
Her work is familiar to the human experience, a collection of memorabilia showing a true adoration for the subjects. One of the photographs that first caught my eye was ‘Boiling Milk Solfataras (1999)’, located in the upper part of the gallery. The image shows Halperin boiling milk in natural volcanic steam during a visit to Iceland, allowing for a further investigation of fast geology, a process that occurs over decades or years rather than the millions as previously thought.
Halperin has described the work as ‘waiting for all the layers of geological time and activity to make their way up to the surface to the point where it’s humanly viable to connect with it. With as little mediation as possible’. The photograph is one of her earliest works featured in the exhibition.
However, her relationship with Eldfell has stayed with me, a thought provoking experience that inspired me to further explore the exhibition. The Eldfell volcanic cone is located on the island of Heimaey in Iceland’s Westman Islands and is 200m above sea level. The cone was formed during a surprise eruption in 1973, causing the evacuation of over 5,000 residents and the destruction of over 400 homes. This eruption and name ‘Eldfell’ is known as the Hill of Fire.
“Sharing your birthday with a volcano is a way to speed up deep time”
I first grew a fascination with volcanoes and those who admire them after watching ‘Fire of Love’ in 2022. The documentary follows volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, a couple whose love and devotion to not just each other, but to their work, illustrates the human experience of life and death through their deep emotional connection to exploring and understanding volcanic eruptions. Sadly, in the end their dedication to a dangerous path is what kills them after a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen in Japan.
To devote such time and passion to forming a connection with a dangerous subject, draws nothing but admiration and respect where others may see a stupidity in risking your life for science. This is exactly what I saw when looking at Halperin’s work. Turning 30, Ilana began mapping the timeline of her life alongside Eldfell, following their 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays together.
She first made the journey to visit Eldfell in 2003, to celebrate their 30th birthday, a trip she had planned at 29 from her parent’s bedroom. In a piece at the exhibition addressing the project, she writes:
‘Eldfell and I are the same age. In 2003 I turned 30 and visited Eldfell for the first time, celebrating our simultaneous appearance in 1973. The summer before I turned 30, my father was very sick. I planned the trip to Eldfell from my parents’ bedroom. There was no clear-cut reason I wanted to go. It was an impulse. Landmass regeneration. Ten years later, I returned to Eldfell. Standing on the volcano, I thought about how we were almost 40. I wondered about returning to Eldfell when we both turned 50, 60 … on. How, while we both share our lifetimes now, that will only continue for a certain amount of time, and then Eldfell will go from a human timescal 30 years old, 40 years old, to a geological timescale, 150, 1000, 800 million years old. I realised I had made a pact with Eldfell – a lifelong project exploring what it means to share your life with a volcano‘
In the piece ‘Twenty years with Eldfell’ from 2023, there is a series of watercolour illustrations placed linear across the wall of the gallery’s main entrance marking the pair’s 50th birthday. This includes a unique take on a self portrait, drawing herself as a lava bomb, much like the one featured at the exhibition.
She carefully illustrates & curates this decades long relationship through the use of watercolours, drawings and pieces of handwritten work, as well as the occasional sculpture. Much of the image created of this relationship, is crafted from gifts given to Halperin by Eldfell itself, as a friend would gift another. These ‘gifts’ include crystals, agate and a lava bomb.
Although Ilana is from Glasgow, 762 miles apart from the island of Heimaey’s main town Vestmannaeyjar, for over 50 years there has been an invisible string connecting her to Eldfell, growing together side by side. This is what captured me the most, the fact that you can spend an entire lifetime never knowing or experiencing those who share the same birthday or birth year as you. Both experiencing life and your time on earth miles and contents apart. For those who are lucky enough to cross paths with such, it can birth a lifetime of rewards.
During research, I found the Lusi Mud volcano or Sidoarjo mud flow located in East Java Indonesia. Active since 2006, the year I was born, it is the largest mud volcano in the world. Although it is agreed to have been the worst eruption of its kind, this is a discovery and birth year twin I never would have otherwise known or acknowledged its existence if it hadn’t been for this chance encounter with Ilana Halperin’s work.
