Ilana Halperin

In 2003 Glasgow-based artist Ilana Halperin turned 30. To celebrate she visited the Eldfell volcano in Iceland. This is perhaps not the way most young women would commemorate their third decade, but it ties in with both her nomadic temperament and her fascination with the relationship between geological phenomena and daily life, an interest which has taken her to the far flung corners of the world.

Halperin takes a number of inter-related starting points such as this volcano visit, and weaves a narrative out of them. In this case, field work in a mammoth cave, a conversation with a geologist in Glasgow about a crystal shard and an interview with an arctic explorer in Lapland all arose from this birthday visit and were united in the project ‘Nomadic Landmass’. As the artist points out, ‘each story uses geology as a language to understand our relationship to a constantly evolving world’.

Halperin works with a range of materials to playfully engage the viewer, from drawing and photography to installation, watercolour, etching, video and text. In this upcoming exhibition Halperin will exhibit the project ‘Towards Heilprin Land’, bringing together documentation of many interconnected encounters including conversations with Volcanologists and a journey aboard a ship to north east Greenland. Halperin engages us not only by making tragically beautiful imagery but by setting us a challenge.

More: Visual art, Ilana Halperin

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