Hand Held Lava

About

As an interlude to the static exhibition Slip Sensor Cell Project Space presents Hand Held Lava, a performative lecture by Ilana Halperin. Recently commissioned by Triple Canopy, New York, the work investigates our ongoing desire to make contact with volcanoes. Hand Held Lava is a collaborative work by volcanic archaeologist Karen Holmberg and writer, curator, Andrew Patrizio and the artist, Halperin. Throughout the proceedings Karen Holmberg, based in New York, will be broadcast live via audio link up as the remaining collaborators perform within the space. Spoken word and visual assemblages interweave scientific findings with matter from history and everyday culture, excavating a narrative history of the volcano. Halperin's geological investigations have taken her around the world to remote sites in locations from Hawaii to Iceland; rooted with an interest in humanity's relationship to the shifting environment. The artist's projects develop out of personal encounters with unpredicted natural occurrences. ‘We are next to an erupting volcano. We are sleeping in a place seven miles from the point where lava enters the ocean. The current eruption has been going since 1984. The perpetual creation of new landmass.' - Excerpt from Hand Held Lava Past projects by Halperin include boiling a saucepan of milk in the crater of an active volcano, and the celebration of the artist's 30th birthday at the Eldfell volcano on the Icelandic island Heimaey, to mark her shared emergence with the landmass in 1973. Eldfell volcano was also of notable interest to Robert Smithson; discussed in one of the artist's last interviews in the aforementioned year. Hand Held Lava was commissioned by Triple Canopy and will be forthcoming on their website at www.canopycanopycanopy.com Ilana Halperin (b. 1973, New York) lives and works in Glasgow. Upcoming projects include the solo exhibition ‘Physical Geology, a Field Guide to Body Mineralogy and Other New Landmass' at the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité, and fieldwork sessions to Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland to encounter new landmass formed in the recent eruption. Previous solo exhibitions include ‘Physical Geology (slow time)' at Artists Space, New York; ‘Physical Geology (part one)' at the Manchester Museum and ‘Nomadic Landmass' at doggerfisher in Edinburgh. Group exhibitions include ‘Volcano', Compton Verney, Warwickshire; ‘Estratos' curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, PAC Murcia, Spain; ‘Polar Dispatches', Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; the ‘Sharjah Biennial 8' and ‘Experimental Geography', ICI, currently touring.