James Hutton: Ilana Halperin, Karine Polwart and more in conversation

James Hutton: Ilana Halperin, Karine Polwart and more in conversation

Artists Ilana Halperin and Louise Bennetts, writer and performer Karine Polwart, and soil scientist Colin Campbell (Chief Executive of the James Hutton Institute) discuss Hutton’s legacy in the context of contemporary creative practice. The conversation is chaired by Susanna Beaumont, curator of Earth Matters. This event was programmed as part of Earth Day [https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-2026/] to celebrate two concurrent exhibitions that explore our place in geological time – Ilana Halperin: What Is Us and What Is Earth [https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth/] (Fruitmarket) and Earth Matters [https://www.rbge.org.uk/whats-on/earth-matters/65719/] (Inverleith House Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) – in the context of the tercentenary of Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726-1797) [https://james-hutton.org/tercentenary/].     Ilana Halperin: What Is Us and What Is Earth An exhibition of sculpture, drawing and photography from Glasgow based artist Ilana Halperin, whose art seeks to make geological time human; to map the incomprehensible vastness of geological time and the natural world through the knowable familiarity of human experience.   Earth Matters (20.03.26–01.11.26. Inverleith House Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) Marking the tercentenary of James Hutton’s birth, Earth Matters celebrates the life of the ground-breaking Edinburgh born geologist and farmer. Exploring his writings on soil, Earth Matters is inspired by Hutton and other subsequent trailblazers who have helped challenge and change our understanding of soil. Through art and craft, dating from the 18th century to the present-day, work by over thirty artists and makers illuminates the vital beauty and brilliance of the earth beneath our feet.   Funded jointly with the Edinburgh Geological Society [https://edinburghgeolsoc.org/] and Design Exhibition Scotland. [https://www.designexhibitionscotland.co.uk/]   Photos and video of What is Us and What is Earth are available on our online archive [https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth/]. Fruitmarket produced a book [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth] to accompany the show. Writing by Paul Bonaventura, Catriona McAra with Claire Cousins, and Stephanie Straine sheds new light on Halperin's work and career, while a sequence of letters between Ilana Halperin and friends geographer Adam Bobbette and writer Candice Chung offer personal insight into the thought processes behind this intensely beguiling body of work. The book can be ordered from our online shop [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth], where you can also buy a limited edition lithograph print [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-the-rock-cycle-stromatolites-2026?variant=57891491086720] made especially by Ilana. A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/] where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, [https://bsky.app/profile/fruitmarket.bsky.social] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/fruitmarketgallery/] or TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@fruitmarketgallery?lang=en].

Ilana Halperin

Artist Ilana Halperin in conversation with Fruitmarket director Fiona Bradley.  Ilana Halperin (b.1973, New York; lives and works in Glasgow) thinks deeply about our relationship to place and to the rocks that form the foundations of the Earth on which we live. What interests Halperin is the ability rocks have to tell stories about life – life that has left its mark, however minutely, in the matter of the earth.    The show Ilana Halperin: What is Us and What is Earth ran at the Fruitmarket from February to May 2026. The exhibition brought together several bodies of work made over the last twenty-five years that allow us to think about the deep time of geology through the lens of the human life and body. Photos and video of What is Us and What is Earth are available on our online archive [https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth/].   Fruitmarket produced a book [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth] to accompany the show. Writing by Paul Bonaventura, Catriona McAra with Claire Cousins, and Stephanie Straine sheds new light on Halperin's work and career, while a sequence of letters between Ilana Halperin and friends geographer Adam Bobbette and writer Candice Chung offer personal insight into the thought processes behind this intensely beguiling body of work. The book can be ordered from our online shop [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-what-is-us-and-what-is-earth], where you can also buy a limited edition lithograph print [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/ilana-halperin-the-rock-cycle-stromatolites-2026?variant=57891491086720] made especially by Ilana.     A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/] where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, [https://bsky.app/profile/fruitmarket.bsky.social] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/fruitmarketgallery/] or TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@fruitmarketgallery?lang=en].

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

A conversation between Neal Ambrose-Smith and Dr. Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani about the artist, activist, educator and curator Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Fruitmarket’s new exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Wilding  Born January 15, 1940 Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana. Smith created complex abstract paintings and prints for over five decades. Known for her poetic, curious, and profound interpretations of America’s particular forms of bigotry toward Native peoples, the artist’s sharp humour pierced through the heavy topics of race, colonialism, pollution, genocide, and survival.   Wilding is showing at the Fruitmarket until February 2026. The exhibition was conceived in conversation with the artist before her sad and sudden death at the beginning of 2025 and will be the first time her work has been seen in Scotland. The exhibition’s title came from the artist, who from our earliest conversations wanted the exhibition to engage with the history and politics of land stewardship.  The exhibition includes paintings and a large canoe sculpture made by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith especially for Fruitmarket, together with a selection of paintings from throughout her career. The exhibition is an opportunity to get to know the compelling work of this artist attuned to the importance of paying attention and taking action. While the show is running pictures and video of the work are available on our website. In future this material will be available in our online archive [https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/]. The book produced by Fruitmarket to accompany Wilding is available from our online bookshop [https://fruitmarketbookshop.myshopify.com/products/jaune-quick-to-see-smith-wilding].   Neal Ambrose-Smith, Jaune’s son, collaborated with his mother from the 1990s until her death, including on many of the works featured in Wilding. Neal is a descendent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. A renowned painter, sculptor, Ambrose-Smith formerly served as professor and department chair at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.   A descendant of the Mvskoke (Creek) and Osage nations, Dr. Maryam Ohadi-Hamadani is an art historian and curator specialising in modern and contemporary art of the global diasporas, focusing on the postcolonial histories of African, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and Black British art in Britain and beyond.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/]where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, [https://bsky.app/profile/fruitmarket.bsky.social] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/fruitmarketgallery/] or TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@fruitmarketgallery?lang=en].

Holly Davey

A conversation between Holly Davey and Ruth Bretherick, Fruitmarket’s Research and Public Engagement Curator, discussing Davey’s 2024 exhibition The Unforgetting. Holly Davey is a British artist who works with photography, collage, sculpture, text and performance. Since 2019 she has been making a body of work under the title A Script for an Archive, in which she focuses on ‘what is happening at the edges’ of archives and in the figures (often women) who have been marginalised in the historical record. In 2022 Fruitmarket invited Davey to work with its archive, a project which culminated in The Unforgetting, which mixed sculpture and performance to give voice to the ‘silent’ parts of Fruitmarket’s archive, finding creative potential in its gaps and omissions. Davey joined Ruth Bretherick in front of a live audience sitting within the Unforgetting installation, following a performance featuring Holly alongside Jill Smith, who was the first female artist to exhibit at Fruitmarket. You can find out more about The Unforgetting at Fruitmarket’s online archive [https://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive/holly-davey-the-unforgetting/], where there are images and video of the installation, along with downloadable excerpts of the limited edition newspaper produced as part of the exhibition.   A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/] where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on  Bluesky, [https://bsky.app/profile/fruitmarket.bsky.social] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/fruitmarketgallery/] or TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@fruitmarketgallery?lang=en].

Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson in conversation with Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley about his exhibition Humpty Dumpty, a transient history of Mardin earthworks, low rise. The show uses Fruitmarket’s Warehouse as the machine room, or driving force, for a major new installation that extends across all three spaces of the gallery. Built around two sets of photographs taken in London and a city in Eastern Turkey between 2010 and 2014, the work captures cities in flux, guided by their politics and leaders of the time. Mike’s show is running at Fruitmarket until Sunday October 5th. Find out more at fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/] (once the show closes, images and video will still be available, via our online archive [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/archive]). A free, public space for culture in the heart of Edinburgh, Fruitmarket provides inspiration and opportunity for artists and audiences. We programme, develop and present world-class exhibitions, commissions, publications, performances, events and engagement activities, opening up the artistic process. To find out more about our current exhibition programme and upcoming events visit fruitmarket.co.uk [http://www.fruitmarket.co.uk/] where you can sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/fruitmarketgallery/].