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 multi-species place-making, foraging, sex and safety. However, olfactory orientations are increasingly redolent with the pungent stench of colonial and capitalist over-consumption, extraction and terra-firming.
Join Tarsh in the UmArts Studio to explore the effects of environmental change on more-than-human smell experiences and play seriously with creative ways to make-with non-humans to support flourishing smell futures.
Bring some of your favourite making tools and materials.
Bio
Tarsh Bates is UmArts Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Design and Molecular Biology at Umeå Institute of Design and the Department of Molecular Biology. Bates was born in Mununjali/Beaudesert, Yugambeh/Queensland, grew up in Matamata, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and has lived for the last 35 years in Boorloo/Perth, Nyungar Boodja/South-Western Australia. They recently moved to Ubmeje, Sápmi, the lands of the Sami people in northern Sweden. They have worked as a pizza delivery driver, a fruit and vegetable stacker, a toilet-paper packer, a compost researcher, a honeybee ejaculator, a gallery invigilator, a raspberry picker, an academic, an editor, a bookkeeper, a car detailer, and a life drawing model. They have a background in biotechnology and contemporary art, and a Masters and PhD in Biological Art from SymbioticA, The University of Western Australia.
Find more information on their post-doctoral project Scentsory Foraging here.