Photo credit © Michihiro Ota

Art explores the deep time of geology in a new exhibition at the Pier Arts Centre, and this afternoon the artists are there to take you on a tour of it. You can join them in a workshop as well.

The rock cycle concept looks over long stretches of time at how rocks form and weather, with the debris gradually forming new rocks as the cycle goes round anew. We ourselves are a tiny part of great flows, with calcium carbonate, for instance, once expressed as ancient single-celled, calcite-rich Fusulina, then coral, and now our bones and teeth.

The exhibition is a collaboration between Japan and Scotland, developed by Glasgow-based artist Ilana Halperin with Oban-based curator Naoko Mabon. They’re joined by two artists from Yamaguchi, Yoshihisa Nakano and Keijiro Suzuki.

There are three sessions, with breaks for tea/coffee/Orkney biscuits. At 2 pm Ilana gives a performative talk, and Orkney geologist Dr John Flett Brown describes the making of the rocks of Orkney.  At 3 pm comes the exhibition tour with the artists, and then at 4 pm Keijiro gives a workshop round the wind (out on the pier in the wind and sun, if that’s what the weather brings!)