IN
NL
Public Event
Seminar 4
On Waste, Smell, Rurality and Citizen Science
6 November2024
14:30 IST
11:00 CET
6 November2024
14:30 IST
11:00 CET
We welcome you to this fourth seminar in the series. Through the work of our guests Nick Shapiro, as well as artists Niroj Satpathy, and Sewali Deka we’ll be looking at the re-use (and re-evaluation) of waste, the role of fiction as research method, citizen science and data resourcing for policy influence, artistic practice in rural conditions with a focus on farming, and food as a community medium.
Post-Event Actions for Students
From Nicholas Shapiro
Sniff around where you live and find the thing (or things) in your home that smells the newest. Come with a description of the smells of this thing.
From Niroj Satpathy
Smell or odor represents time. If you smell an odor, you must understand the time. Everything has a distinctive kind of scent, which can be found in non-human objects, air, water, and soil. Nature is filled with smells, just like machines are everywhere.
Schedule
IST
CET
Item
14:30
11:00
Welcome and Recap
14:45
11:15
Nicholas Shapiro - Air: From engineered woods to alter-engineered worlds
15:30
12:00
Break
15:40
12:10
Sewali Deka - Artist Talk
16:10
12:40
Niroj Satpathy - Hungry Ghost
Talks
Nicholas Shapiro
Air: From engineered woods to alter-engineered worlds
Engineered woods proliferated in the American home after WWII, conditioning indoor air with the allergen, irritant, neurotoxin, and known human carcinogen known as formaldehyde. This chemical bonds together modern architecture while biologically unraveling humans. The talk will track how shelter became a seat of exposure, and how the world might need to be alter-engineered to make the ‘necessary evils’ of these domestic chemicals unnecessary.
Niroj Satpathy
Hungry Ghost
They are moving with the scorching sun. Dust is spreading everywhere, all washes away with the wind. When I look up into the sky there is a drifting tornado, which carries plastic bags, leafs and other garbage, spreading it all over the land. After seeing this, I become curious. I saw that everyone around me was carrying a large stone like mass on their backs and sometimes on their heads. They have been carrying this heavy stone-like material for the past few years and because of the weight they look completely tired, energy-less, irritated and behaving in an unnatural way. One of the people came close to me. He asked “can you please help me a little to remove this stone from my back?”
“It looks like stone, but it’s not. What kind of material is this?” I asked, as it was producing liquids and strong smells.
“Are you new to this city” he asked. “When did you arrive here?”
I replied “Yes, I am new; I arrived in the city a few months back”.
He smiled a suspicious kind of smile. That smile contained a thousand layers of stories about the city, about the human and natural world’s condition. I helped him to remove the mass from his back, and we sat together. “Can you tell me exactly what happened in this city?” I asked him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I replied “I am a night supervisor here and I am trying to explore your city. Can you help me?”
“Well…” he said. “Whatever this city gives, it takes back with interest. From humans it takes the soul as interest, and us humans become spirits and stay roaming the city. If you want to explore I can help you but you have to pay.”
“What kind of payment and how much?” I asked
“Whatever I tell you, you have to take that information and spread through the air so that people will know and understand. Whatever you spread around in the air will always stay there moving around us. Another condition is; you will carry this stone, my burden”. He suddenly shifted it from his shoulder to mine and we began our trip.
We were walking through the smoggy air when suddenly we saw a shape – at first it looked like a cave, then seemed like a mountain, or a spaceship, or perhaps the crown of the city. “What is that exactly?” I asked.
“It’s a visible ghost” he answered. “We create them. We are the creators of this world, this habitat. It is for the punishment of every human that we carry these stones. These visible ghosts will tell you the dark side of the city, sometimes silent and sometimes violent. Sometimes it represents our history and human presence. Sometimes humans try to remove our history in different ways but we call this the landfill. Everyday of our lives small things happen in different areas; environmentally, socially, ecologically, domestically and politically.” We look at them but we also ignore them. These things slowly rise and move around us, until suddenly they become a big problem and come into the attention of everyone. We try and solve these problems but people try and hide them. This cycle takes a huge amount of our time and lives, affecting our future generations.
-Excerpt from fictional writing work on the topic of solid waste management in India.
Interlocutor Details
Niroj Satpathy
Niroj Satpathy
Sewali Deka
Sewali Deka