A publication to accompany the exhibition (01.05.26-24.05.26) which sees two of the most iconic and politically intelligent voices in contemporary poetry enter intoconversation in this exhibition which takes its title from one of Anna Mendelssohn’s poems.

Since her death in 2009, Mendelssohn’s work has gained the interest of audiences through an increasing array of publication and exhibition contexts. CAConrad (they/them) has spent time among the University of Sussex’s archives that hold an extraordinary store of Mendelssohn’s distinctive drawn and hand written manuscripts. They have prepared nine of their own poems to be presented in what’s become their trademark larger-than-human display size. CAConrad has worked with curator-poet Iain Morrison to select work of Mendelssohn’s that resonates with the voice and form of their own work. This exhibition adopts CAConrad’s method of reproducing their poems in scaled spatial installations to similarly present and interpolate nine unpublished Mendelssohn poem-drawings. 

Ilana Halperin The Rock Cycle (stromatolites), 2026

2 colour lithograph
Edition of 50
Signed and numbered by the artist on the front
28 x 38 cm unframed

£180 / £280 inc tax (unframed/ framed in oak)

This new stone lithograph, made to celebrate the artist’s current solo exhibition at Fruitmarket What is Us and What is Earth with Edinburgh Printmakers, draws on ideas embedded in the sculptural constellation The Rock Cycle (from stromatolites to diamonds), 2026: a work that brings fossils, new grown cave objects, Scottish marble and Herkimer Diamonds (ancient quartz crystals from upstate New York) together to foster unexpected connections between early life forms and potential deep time futures. 

As the stone used in lithography is composed of limestone, and in turn limestone is composed of calcium carbonate lifeforms including stromatolites, this new work joins the deep time calcium carbonate family tree that we are also a part of through our teeth and bones.

“When we went to the quarry in Ledmore, Simon explained that around 535 million years ago, the marble here mostly began as stromatolite-bearing limestone. Stromatolites are among the first traces of organic life on earth. They are the reason we can breathe. The stromatolites died, were crushed, compressed, turned into limestone and cooked by new rock that ground its way through fissures in the dolostone (a near relation of limestone), and marble occurred. Across the Atlantic in upstate New York, a similar process happened, and then Herkimer Diamonds grew in pockets in the dolostone. Now, different branches of this carbonate family are meeting. We are part of this conglomerate family too – a deep time calcium carbonate family tree stretching from stromatolites all the way to our teeth and bones. A different form of generational understanding. 

We are all chimeras. There are cells from our grandmothers, uncles, brothers, sisters and mothers living inside of all of us. But can we go further – do we have memories of the material we are made of (we are made of star stuff…) Of limestone and tuff, of calcium carbonate and coral, of ammonites. What about cells, about atoms, about mountains? Of mineral memories? I am sure this is not scientifically accurate, but could it be something else accurate, a possibility?

Mountains and rocks, which remind us they are the product of the living, can become reanimated again, an infinite source of narratives, deeply embedded in our connected identities. Can looking more closely at our geologic neighbours help us to connect in felt, material and corporeal ways to our place in the deep time story, help us care about our deep time family?”

 – Ilana Halperin