Olfactory Media Library

The Olfactory Media Library (OML), is a moveable expandable field research and creation station focused on tuning and augmenting our sensory experience of the atmosphere. The OML develops and shares creative practices in socially-engaged olfactory art that directly engage with topics of atmosphere and risk, and provokes imagination and discourse about shared climate futures.

OML has partnered with a number of artists, activists, collaborators and community groups in the US and Canada to host discussions and workshops on topics related to atmosphere and olfaction. Documentation of past events, workshops, and programming can be found on the here along with a recording of our online discussion, “Cultures of Atmosphere,” created as part of the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum’s events commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Donora Smog Tragedy.

In the summer of 2024, the Olfactory Media Library launched with five events across four locations in the United States and Canada. Workshops responding to our shared airspaces through experimental sensing and performances were held at: General Sisters, North Braddock, PA; Good City Group Soundwalk Series, Chicago, IL; Plug-In ICA, Winnipeg, MB; and Moosebed, Lacombe, AB.

During these initial workshop events, the library was equipped with an archive of tools and materials designed for experimental interpretation of, and performances in response to, our shared airspaces. In these events, we gathered with small groups to tune our senses to the atmosphere as a shared and multispecies commons, and collectively consider our roles in its futures. Activities were aimed at shifting our sensory perception toward the smells and signals wafting through the air, where volatile organic compounds released by plants intermingle with human-induced emissions. The events offered differed by location and audience and included workshops, multisensory soundwalks, artistic performances and experimentation, and discussion.

In May of 2025, the Olfactory Media Library was presented at Uncommon Senses V: Sensing the Social, the Environmental, and Across the Arts and Sciences at Concordia University in Montreal, QC in an exhibition, workshop, and panel presentation.

Alex Young and Lindsey FrenchThe Olfactory Media Library is supported in part by funding from FRFF Grant #2024-006 and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with additional support from Mark Pawelec and the Donora Historical Society and Smog Museum, and the University of Regina. Additional images available here.