Scent Poems for Pipeline Plants

Lindsey french and Alex Young, 2023

Multisensory Art Gallery at Uncommon Senses IV: Sensory Ecologies, Economies and Aesthetics, Concordia University, May 6-9, 2023

Project Description
“Scent Poems for Pipeline Plants” considers the volatile organic compounds plants release as signals, alongside VOCs released from human activity such as industrial emissions and energy use.

This installation, created in Spring 2023, includes three of 36 scents we are creating in response to our experience traveling the 1000-plus miles of the contested Line 3 crude oil pipeline, from Edmonton, Alberta across the US/Canada border to Superior, Wisconsin. Along the pipeline, we stopped at 36 sites and did the following three things. First, we deposited a “scent poem” for the plants living atop the upturned earth; each scent poem (created prior in public workshops we hosted) consisted of oils infused with scent-signaling compounds used by plants, in a handmade ceramic vessel fitted with a lens to heat the oils in the sun. Then, we photographed each site, along with two ceramic vessels: a red earth vessel we left there with the poems, and a corresponding buff stoneware one that we labeled and took home. Finally, we gathered roadside debris and made notes about each site: nearby plants, smells, sounds, insects, details from conversations with other people, the importance of each site, etc.

For our 2023 exhibition, we utilized the notes from our site visits to create custom scents for three of the 36 sites, including the first site where the pipeline began (1-Edmonton), a site at the edge of settler and treaty land (31-Cass Lake), and a site near the pipeline’s terminus where the pipeline was visible above ground (35-Superior).

The three scents were incorporated into an installation evoking each of the three chosen sites. Each scent was contained within a handmade ceramic vessel which functioned as a headspace within a deconstructed atomizer. The scents were activated by squeezing a rubber inflation bulb, which pumped air through a diffusion cone, allowing participants to lean in and experience each site’s smell.

The sculptural elements of the installation referenced visual and material aesthetics from along the pipeline, including pipeline posts, polyethylene tubing, rubber bulb pumps and plastic funnels on a fractured and charred pin oak base, and painted wood structure mimicking aerial pipeline markers holding didactics and inkjet printed photographs of the three selected sites.

Download the Virtual Book of Abstracts for the Multisensory Art Gallery at Uncommon Senses IV for more information.

Acknowledgements
Initial project created for and with support by 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Bienniel at Franconia Sculpture Park, curated by Ginger Shulick Porcella. With additional support from the University of Regina.

Public Events
- Scent Poems for Pipeline Plants for 4Ground: Midwest Land Art Biennial LAUNCH PARTY
- Scent Walk for An Afternoon of Sound, Scent & Performance at Franconia Sculpture Park