ARTISTS TALKING

A collection of conversational core samples.
An extended strata study.

In 1902, an astonishing geological phenomenon was witnessed for the first time in recorded history. A young girl and a convict were the only survivors of a massive volcanic eruption on the island of Martinique. Following this catastrophic event, ‘The Tower of Pelée’, a volcanic pillar 150 metres wide and 300 metres high, emerged from the crater of the previously dormant volcano.

At the Geological Society in London, I happened across writings by Angelo Heilprin, an active geologist at the turn of the twentieth century (who may also be a distant relative). Upon observation of this geological monument, he simply stated it was “a memorial of nature for the 30,000 dead who are lying buried in the city”. Within a year, the tower was gone, eroded into the depths of the crater.

Frank Perret, an early vulcanologist, monitored the seismic activity of Mount Vesuvius through clamping his teeth around the metal bedposts in his room, which were embedded in the slopes of the volcano.

In daily life, it is impossible to have unmediated contact with geothermally sourced heat; to do so would be to incinerate. To make more intimate sense of this phenomenon, I boiled a small pan of milk in a 100 degree Celsius sulphur spring in the crater of an active volcano.

In 1831, an island named Ferdinandea appeared off the southern coast of Sicily, sparking an international dispute over territorial ownership of this strategically positioned heap of young geology. Before any serious conflicts developed, the island disappeared, crumbling back into the sea. Recently, I had the opportunity to view Ferdinandea under a microscope at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. The only mineral sample that remains of this island is housed between two glass slides, a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment.

In July 2003, the summer before I turned thirty, I decided to travel to a volcanic cone named Eldfell that had also been born in 1973 on the Icelandic island of Heimaey. I did not anticipate that this trip would become the starting point for a two-year project entitled ‘Ruins in Reverse (Nomadic Landmass)’. Like much of my past work, this project followed an unexpected chain of increasingly interconnected events including a correspondence with a vulcanologist; participation on a field work session in Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world; a conversation about a crystal shard with a geologist in Glasgow; an interview with an Arctic adventure explorer in Lapland, who later went missing en-route to the North Pole, and an inexplicable connection with a German baker who lived at the foot of Eldfell.

A section of Greenland is named after Angelo Heilprin as a tribute to the time he set out on a rescue mission and brought a good friend to safety from that frozen terrain. In the future, I would like to follow this trail of geological pilgrimage, from the slopes of Mount Pelée to an underwater island that no longer exists.

Ilana Halperin is an artist originally from New York, now based in Glasgow. She is currently undertaking a research residency at Camden Arts Centre in London.

www.ilanahalperin.com
www.camdenartscentre.org
www.doggerfisher.com