Volatile Ecologies: Lichens, Reindeer, Olfaction and Environmental Change

Discription

In the long dark winters across Sápmi, the lands of the Sami people in northern Fennoscandia, reindeer forage through the forests attracted by the smells of lichen buried under layers of snow. Followed by humans, they perform an olfactory dance of mutual survival. However, climate change causes unpredictable snow melts; melted snow freezes into ice and more snow piles on. The volatile chemicals released by the lichen diffuse through the ice differently than through snow and the 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. Consumption is central to these olfactory re-orientations: matter is sensed, ingested, metabolised and emitted. 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. Focusing on the olfactory entanglements of lichen, reindeer and ice, this interdisciplinary panel explores how environmental change affects atmospheric flows, gaseous metabolisms and odorous relations. 

Panelists

Markus Fjellström (scientific archaeologist), Sue Hauri-Downing (Artist & Eco-Social Worker), Tim Horstkotte (Researcher), Mari Keski-Korsu (Artist & Researcher).  

Convened by

Tarsh Bates (UmArts). 

Photo of lichen in ice, by Tarsh Bates

Image Tarsh Bates

Profiles

Markus Fjellström (Sweden): Markus is a scientific archaeologist with a background in Sámi archaeology and food cultures, mobility patterns and climate changes in Northern Fennoscandia and Sápmi from Late Iron Age to early historical period (ca. 900-1800 AD). Between 2020 and 2022, he worked at the University of Oulu in the project Domestication by Action – Tracing Archaeological Markers of Human-Animal Interaction, led by Anna-Kaisa Salmi and funded by an ERC Starting Grant and the Academy of Finland. His research examined reindeer domestication processes, diet, mobility, and environmental changes through time using different stable isotope methods applied to different archaeological approaches. He is currently based at Lund University researching reindeer diet and migration and environmental changes from the Late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic. He also coordinates the project Archaeological surveys of melting glaciers and snow patches in Swedish Sápmi (GLAS), led by Kerstin Lidén and financed by the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation (2020-2024). This project is a collaboration with Stockholm University, Jamtli, Västerbotten, Norrbotten, Silvermuseet/INSARC and Ájtte Mountain and Sámi museum. 

Sue Hauri-Downing (Australia): Sue is my collaborator on the Scents of Solastalgia project that examines the significance of olfactory landscapes to the rapidly changing, multi-species experiences of place in the face of environmental change. She is an independent artist and eco-social worker whose practice focuses on biocultural diversity, ecological distress and interspecies relationships. She is particularly interested in plants, lichens, pollinators, more-than-human food security, colonial practices, and environmental and social responsibilities. She has 20 years of experience working with people from diverse backgrounds and her trauma sensitive practice is dedicated to strengthening and improving well-being and the natural systems in which we live.  

Tim Horstkotte (Sweden): Based at Umeå University, Tim’s research revolves around social-ecological systems - that is how people and nature influence each other. In particular, he is interested in how multiple interests placed on natural resources can be combined, and what trade-offs may be necessary to achieve them. This includes management of boreal forests by forestry, which are also essential for the Indigenous livelihood of reindeer husbandry. His work is often interdisciplinary, integrating ecological and ethnographic approaches to better understand the consequences of environmental change. Participatory research with reindeer herders is therefore an important part in his work. Furthermore, he is investigating the effects of climate change on arctic-alpine vegetation by using data collected from long-term monitoring. 

Mari Keski-Korsu (Finland): Mari is a post-disciplinary artist and researcher who explores micro-level manifestations of the ecological polycrisis. Her work is based on multispecies collaborations and the medium of expression is a hybrid combination of participatory performance, visual and live art. Her practice involves intuitive interspecies communication, hydrobodily care and walking methodology to acknowledge relationality in ecosystems as sentient ecologies. She is a doctoral researcher (expected 2024) to study towards Doctor of Arts degree in Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of Art and Media, supervised by Prof. Laura Beloff and a part of RAT research group. Her research focuses on multispecies/more-than-human ritualisations in change in the (sub)Arctic (North Sápmi) and she is an artist member in interdisciplinary research group working in Abisko Scientific Research Station in Access Abisko program. Her 2023 work, Walking with Permafrost, creates a ritual on a walk which is guided by the microbial movement in the active layer of the permafrost that is followed by warm foot bath. It juxtaposes the vulnerability of the permafrost with the vulnerability of the human body, proposing encounters with the time-traveling species that may exist in the water from the permafrost thaw. Mari’s works have been exhibited internationally for the past 25 years in festivals, galleries, museums and outskirts. She has been collaborating with Bioart Society for over a decade and worked as an artistic director of Pixelache festival. She holds a MA from University of Arts and Design Helsinki (Medialab) and BA in visual arts from Polytechnic of Western Lapland. She is a specialist in steam bathing treatments and ceremonies and teaches traditional sauna practises.