Minerals of New York

Originally from New York, Ilana Halperin studied for her MFA at Glasgow School of Art, and now works between Glasgow and the Isle of Bute. Her research-practice is internationally oriented, with a deep time focus, and explores the relationship between geology and everyday life. For example, Halperin shares her birthday with the Eldfell volcano in Iceland, and returns once a decade to spend time with the volcano on significant occasions.

For Leeds Arts University, Halperin’s latest body of work ‘Minerals of New York’, takes the form of a mineral biography of the city.

In Halperin’s own words: “The project began with an encounter with the Subway Garnet, a huge historic blood red mineral found on 35th Street and Broadway. It led me deep into the stores of the American Museum of Natural History, to a personal mineral museum in the basement of a small bungalow in Queens, and back again, to a piece of Garnetifous Gneiss found 150 feet below the street where I grew up in New York City.”

The exhibition is currently on show at Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, curated by Dominic Paterson.