Post-doc project Tracing the eros of olfaction in multi-species metabolisms
This project investigates how smells produced by microbial metabolism act as interspecies signals within ecosystems. It explores how odours move through bodies and environments, and how olfactory landscapes are shaped by climate change, colonialism and capitalism through smell-based foraging and sensory research.
Olfaction is the sensation experienced by the caress of volatile organic compounds on the membranes of cells. Ephemeral and invisible, smell chemicals are exchanged at all scales, from the molecular to the atmospheric, flowing between microbes, fungi, plants, animals, soil, water and air. Odorants move through and between bodies and species, integral to life processes and multi-species place-making. However, olfactory orientations are increasingly redolent with the pungent stench of colonial and capitalist over-consumption, extraction and terra-firming. This project is a web of smell-based foraging actions oriented towards understanding how odours move between and through bodies, ecosystems and cultures. I explore the roles of odorants generated by microbes through their metabolic processes within ecologies, how these can be understood as interspecies communications and how they are affected by environmental and climate changes.
This project has three streams of research:
1. Scents of Solastalgia (SoS)
2. Scents of Consumption (SoC)
3. Scents of Asilomar (SoA)
Scents of Solastalgia (SoS), has been developed in collaboration with artist and eco-social worker, Susan Hauri-Downing (AUS). We explore the significance of olfactory landscapes to the rapidly changing, multi-species experiences of place and of environmental change and loss, also known as solastalgia. Through a series of eco-sensory community workshops, performances and artworks, we explore how olfaction can help us understand and manage ecological distress and welcome or imagine novel ecologies. This project has received support from Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Western Australia and the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sport and Creative Industries.
The research questions we explore in SoS are:
Scents of Consumption (SoC) traces the agencies of microbial volatile organic chemicals through human and more-than-human consumption practices, traversing scales from the molecular to the atmospheric. The first stage of this project explores the olfactory relationships between lichen, ice, reindeer and anthropogenic climate change. In the long dark winters across Sápmi, reindeer forage through the forests attracted by the smells of lichen buried under layers of snow. However, climate change causes rain and unpredictable snow melts, where melted snow freezes into ice. The volatile chemicals released by the lichen can’t diffuse through the ice and reindeer struggle to find their food. This seemingly small shift in olfactory relations between lichen, reindeer and frozen water has profound effects on multispecies migration, economies and cultures across Sápmi. Consumption is central to these olfactory re-orientations: matter is sensed, ingested, metabolised and emitted. SoC explores how human-induced environmental change affects atmospheric flows, gaseous metabolisms and odorous relations. This project has received support from the Centre for Volatile Interactions, University of Copenhagen.
The research questions I explore in SoC are:
Scents of Asilomar (SoA) is a collaborative creative project with designers Devon Ward (USA) and Yuning Chen (CHINA/UK), in which we explore the interactions between biotechnological practices, atmospheres and olfactory experiences. We collect and blend odorants from diverse biotechnological environments and organisms to imagine, synthesise and co-create multi-species scents, spirits and futures. Supported by the Future Organisms project at The Edinburgh Hub for Responsible Innovation. This project resulted in a performance intervention at “The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology summit,” Monterey, CA in February 2025.
