The Gift of Scent
WOLVES IN THE MIRE
Randi Nygård and Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel
Scent, bags, embroidery
For the The Chilean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale members of Ensayos, Christy Gast, Caitlin Franzmann and Randi Nygård made gifts of scents from bogs in USA, Australia and Norway. The artists explored the ecology and culture of peatlands local to their regions. Together with different collaborators including Freja Carmichael (curator and Ngugi woman of the Quandamooka people), Denise Milstein (sociologist), Renee Rossini (ecologist), Karolin Tampere (curator/artist), Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel (artist) and Agustine Zegers (artist), each location gifted scents and different scent carriers (embroidered bags, glass vessels, ceramics) from their respective research and peatlands, contributing to the multisensory experience of the pavilion in Venice.
The pavilion in 2022 is curated by Ensayos founder Camila Marambio, and features an immersive installation by Chilean creatives Ariel Bustamante (sound), Carla Macchiavello (art historian), Dominga Sotomayor (filmmaker) and Alfredo Thiermann (architect), whose work will plunge viewers into the hol-hol tol or “heart of peatland” in the language of the Selk’nam people who are indigenous to Tierra del Fuego in Patagonia.
Photo Courtesy of Turba Tol and Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage of Chile © Ugo Carmeni and Randi Nygård
TURBA TOL https://turbatol.org/
Wolves in the Mire
When? Where? Why?
Turba Tol, Chilean Pavillion, Venice Biennale 2022
Randi Nygård did fieldwork as part of Ensayos#6 at bogs in different parts of Norway. First she visited a large area of peatlands in the mountains of Norway where she smelled the bogs with her son and nephews. To them the scent was like soil and pine trees, and wet dogs and the ocean.
Bogs are archives of both natural and cultural histories, storing information of how humans, plants and animals interacted and formed the landscape over thousands of years. Its stories can be told through pollen, charcoal, remains of plants, trees, animals and artifacts buried and partly conserved in the peat. The paradox is that excavations would kill the bog, puncture it and drain it, and so most of this matter should remain in the dark. Their stories can be shared in less tangible ways – oral, oracular, olfactory.
In Scandinavian languages there is a common saying: ‘owls in the moss’. It means that something is not quite right, a danger is lurking. Bogs are still being turned into farmland or roads. The saying was originally a Danish expression saying that there are wolves in the mire. Owls and wolves, moss and mire are very similar words in Danish, and as wolves went extinct in Denmark hundreds of years ago, the wording changed. Today there are still a few wolves in Norway and there are reports of their return to Denmark.
Our languages are thought to have evolved over so many thousands of years that the link between how a word sounds and what it represents has been broken. Still, if one compares the meaning of words that begin with the same sounds, they may sometimes have something in common, a movement or a visual form. We can sometimes also intuit a connection between them, like a poetic relation or memory we cannot fully grasp.
So what comes forth if one continues the evolution of "the owls in the moss" expression, by adding words with similar sounds?
wolves in the mire
owls in the moss
howls in the mass
wool in the mess
wombs in the mist
wounds in the moors
wood in the murk
wonders in the matter
Together with her collaborator, artist Simon Daniel Tegnander Wenzel, Randi went to a protected bog in Oslo, Bogerudmyra. As they touched and sniffed the ground, strong scents of wet soil, dried grass and pine wood appeared. It was not rotten, as some might expect. The bog had an earthy, heavy, resinous, fertile and rich odor. It seemed dark, but still it was fresh and clear. And oceanic. There were hints of wet wool or fur - perhaps the scent of a wolf?
Following this fieldwork, Simon experimented in his laboratory and produced the scent titled ‘Wolves in the Mire’. One of the ingredients is geosmin, a substance produced by bacteria in the earth, known to humans as the scent of wet soil. This scent is a sign of micro-organisms in the soil, which tells us that it is alive. This is probably also what the bog has in common with the ocean: its water is the home of algae and organisms which produce distinct, almost erotic, odors.
Our sense of smell is important for knowing our surroundings, for bonding to others, humans and animals, and for feeling at home. Imagine putting your nose into the fur or hair of your loved ones or into the moist moss and dark peat of a bog.