Through the lens of Yamaguchi and Scotland, The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi) considers new ways of imagining our relationship to the natural world.

This project draws inspiration from the geological rock cycle, a geological concept that describes how rocks change from one type to another through geologic time. 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 Akiyoshidai, the highest concentration of karst formations in Japan, to our relationship with it and in a wider sense to geology and geological time as a whole, if we imagine ourselves as part of the rock cycle, both poetically and materially? For example, what might happen if we were to imagine ourselves as part of a deep time calcium carbonate family tree - from Fusulina, to coral, to our bones and teeth?

Building on a two-week research residency in 2018 hosted by Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Glasgow-based artist Ilana Halperin has developed a new cross-disciplinary project between Scotland and Japan with Scotland-based curator Naoko Mabon. The exhibition will tour to the Pier Arts Centre in Orkney in 2020/21, where Halperin’s new body of work, both with material unique to Yamaguchi and in response to the geological and archaeological context of Orkney, will be featured, in conversation with thematically resonant works by Yamaguchi-based artists Yoshihisa Nakano and Keijiro Suzuki.

* The Rock Cycle (Yamaguchi) is an official event of ‘Japan Season of Culture in the UK’, and an affiliate programme of ‘UK in JAPAN 2019-20’.

SISTER EXHIBITIONS
Akiyoshidai International Art Village, Yamaguchi
12 October - 20 October 2019
9am-5pm
www.aiav.jp/en

‘Karstar’ The Mine-Akiyoshidai Karst Plateau Geopark Center
12 October - 4 November 2019
9am-5pm
en.mine-geo.com/karstar

SYMPOSIUM / FIELD WORKSHOP
Seminar room, Akiyoshi-dai Museum of Natural History
Sunday 13 October, 1.30-4.10pm. Free, all welcome.
- Artist talk by Ilana Halperin
- Lecture by Professor Kazuhiro Tanaka, Trustee / Vice President, Yamaguchi University
- Creative field workshop by artist Keijiro Suzuki at Akiyoshidai Karst Plateau

SCOTTISH EXHIBITION AND PUBLIC EVENT
2020/2021
Pier Arts Centre, Orkney, Scotland
www.pierartscentre.com