Archive

Tag Archives: University of Oslo

Tvergastein Issue 14 | The Arts & The Environment features Our Entangled Future

April 9, 2020
Art, climate change, Literature

Tvergastein Issue 14: The Arts and the Environment. Image by cChange

 

[OSLO]—Dr. Karen O’Brien and Nicole Schafenacker, editors of the cli-fi anthology “Our Entangled Future” write about the book in the Oslo-based journal, Tvergastein, for Issue #14, Art & Environment! “Can climate fiction help us engage with a new paradigm for social change?”. Read the issue for free here.

p. 82
For example, author and artist Catherine Sarah Young describes her approach to The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store as follows: “I use the abstract yet scientific relationship between scent and memory as a way for humans to redefine their relationship between scent and memory as a way for humans to redefine their relationship with nature through remembering their personal histories and reinforcing their identities, which can facilitate quantum social change.”

p. 82-83
The stories in Our Entangled Future explore characters who connect with reality through non-linear time, collective consciousness, and multi species sentience….Emilia, the main character in Young’s short story, The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store, is a perfumer with a keen sense of smell — which is, in fact, considered by some biologists to be an example fo a quantum phenomenon (McFadden and Al-Khalili 2016). Her sense of smell provides her with important information when she meets a trespassing strange — a hulk of a man who could easily overpower her: “She sniffed the air and smelled his fear”. Together, these short stories suggest that we are entangled through our senses, experiences, and consciousness. .

Thanks, guys! Virtual hugs from Sydney!

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store wins third place at “Our Entangled Future: Short Stories to Empower Quantum Social Change” by the University of Oslo

August 7, 2019
Art

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store now also exists as a short story and won third place at the “Our Entangled Future: Short Stories to Empower Quantum Social Change” held by the University of Oslo. This is my first literary prize in, well, a while, so I am both happy and amused. The open access book will be launched in October at the Transformations 2019 Conference in Santiago, Chile. The book will include one of our studio photos.

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store. Image by Studio Catherine Sarah Young

The story revolves around a female perfumer who lives in a future time when climate change has eradicated a lot of scents and she tries to preserve as many of these as possible. One day, she receives a knock on a door from a client who searches for her to create a perfume that has not been smelled in a very long time.

A perfumer in a future under climate change. Image by Studio Catherine Sarah Young

The actual olfactory art is still at the “Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design” retrospective with the Vitra Design Museum and their staff told me it will travel to the Barcelona Design Museum also in October.

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store at “Victor Papanek: Politics of Design”. Image courtesy of Vitra Design Museum

The Ephemeral Marvels Perfume Store (T.E.M.P.S., or French for “time”) is part of The Apocalypse Project body of work which explores climate change and our environmental futures. Other extensions of this work is An Olfactory Portrait of the Amazon Rainforest exhibited at Science Gallery Dublin in 2017 as part of my residency with LABVERDE in Manaus, Brazil.

An Olfactory Portrait of the Amazon Rainforest. Image courtesy of Science Gallery Dublin

Also part of The Apocalypse Project is The Sewer Soaperie, currently at the DISPOSABLE exhibition of Science Gallery Melbourne. What fun to connect with all of these places with one of my favorite projects! Thank you to the jury and all the curators and institutions who have supported this work in the fields of art, science, design, and now fiction.