Umeå universitets logga

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.