Olfactory Art and the Political in an Age of Resistance

Edited by Gwenn-Aël Lynn and Debra Riley Parr, Routledge, 2021.

Publisher’s presentation :

This book claims a political value for olfactory artworks by situating them squarely in the contemporary moment of various forms of political resistance.

Each chapter presents the current research and art practices of an international group of artists and writers from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, Thailand, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The book brings together new thinking on the potential for olfactory art to critique and produce modes of engagement that challenge the still-powerful hegemonic realities of the twenty-first century, particularly the dominance of vision as opposed to other sensory modalities.

The book will be of interest to scholars working in contemporary art, art history, visual culture, olfactory studies, performance studies, and politics of activism.

Table of Contents: 

1 Olfactory Politics in Black Diasporic Art

Hsuan L. Hsu

2 Perfumes, Shea Butter, and Black Soap: The Smell of Resistance

Debra Riley Parr

3 Common Scents, a Social Sense of Smell: Orientation, Territory and the Evidence of Beings

Pitchaya Ngamcharoen. Edit by Vinita Gatne and Bethany Crowford

4 The Political Potential of Smoke

Gwenn-Aël Lynn

5 Olfactory Resistance at the End of the World

Eleonora Edreva

6 Eco-olfactory Art: Experiencing the Stories of the Air We Breathe

Clara Muller

7 Olfactivism: Scents in the City and Beyond

Jim Drobnick

8 Is There Empathy through Breathing?

Dorothée King

9 Olfaction as Radical Collaboration

Lindsey French

10 Chrysanthemum Powder and Other Interspecies Scent Rituals

D Rosen

11 Eat Your Makeup: Perfume, Drag, and the Transgressions of Queer Subjects under Capitalism

Matt Morris

12 Scented Bodies: Perfuming as Resistance and a Subversive Identity Statement

Viveka Kjellmer

13 Women’s Smell: Towards a New Representation of the Body

Sandra Barré

14 Scent and Seduction: The Power of Smell in the Stories of Katherine Mansfield

Dorothy Abram

15 The Olfactory Counter-monument: Active Smelling and the Politics of Wonder in the Contemporary Museum

Brian Goeltzenleuchter

16 Shaking Off Disinterested Contemplation: Toward a New Aesthetics of Smell

Lauryn Mannigel

17 Malodors and Miasmas: The Political Potential of Working with Smell

Alanna Lynch

18 Enteric Aesthetics

Arnaud Gerspacher

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