Outreach

Silke has been invited to give a talk in the Sensory Sciences Lecture Series at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

With its focus on Collective Atmospheres: Air, Intimacy, and Inequality, the ASLE 2025 conference took place July 8–11 and engaged with topics that are likewise central to OLFAC. Bringing together scholars from sensory, breath, and smell studies, including a keynote by Hsuan Hsu, this was a great opportunity for us to meet in person with members of […]

Julia at the DSA conference in Washington, D.C.  Under the title Indeterminate States: Bodies, Fields, Praxis, this year’s international conference of the Dance Studies Association addressed the plural meanings of ‘state’ and its current indeterminacies in view of global conflicts. Held at the George Washington University/Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C., the five-day […]

What if we approach performance from the sense of olfaction and multisensorial perceptions? What if it lingered less in the retina – and more in the nose? At this year’s International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) conference, held at the University of Cologne, Freda Fiala and Julia Ostwald stepped into exactly these questions.  Our panel Carne Vale – Olfactory Becomings invited audiences to consider the […]

Freda talks about ”Artists as Catalysts: Taiwan’s Anti-Nuclear Protests and Environmental Activism” at the ASLE 2025 Virtual Conference Collective Atmospheres: Air, Intimacy, and Inequality, held at the University of Maryland, College Park. 

OLFAC joins the ASLE 2025 Biennial Conference Collective Atmospheres: Air, Intimacy, and Inequality, held at the University of Maryland, College Park. The conference features Julia´s paper  “Staging Clouds“, and Silke´s paper “Scenting Entwinements: Olfactory Arts and the Politics of Air Inequality.“

APARN – Asia Pacific Artistic Research Network Freda talks about ”The Sensing Fold: Research, Affect, and Asia-Pacific Performance Festival Ecologies” at the 2025 APARN – Asia Pacific Artistic Research Network conference held at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

Julia talks about “Soil, Fir Trees, Lavender: Scents of ‘Nature’ in Affective States of Crisis” at the Dance Studies Association (DSA) conference Indeterminate States: Bodies, Fields, Praxis, held at the George Washington University/Washington D.C.

We are delighted to share that Freda Fiala has received the 2025 Young Scholar Award of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS). The EATS Young Scholar Award recognises outstanding original research in Taiwan Studies, based on a single-authored paper that undergoes rigorous double-blind peer review. As a finalist, Freda was also invited to present her work at the EATS […]

Freda talks about ”Sensing Empty Stages, Crowded Studios” at the European Association for Taiwan Studies (EATS) Annual Conference Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, held at the Palacky University Olomouc.

Silke talks about “Tracing the Pomander: Aromatic Medicine, Colonial Extraction, and the Becoming of the Body in Early Modern Europe“ at the conference Spiritualities and Healing in Global and Transhistorical Perspectives (Venice). The conference is organized jointly by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the Harvard Divinity School, the Ca’ Foscari University Venice, and the HEAL Network for the […]

OLFAC joins the IFTR Conference Performing Carnival, held at the University of Cologne, with a Panel on “Olfactory Becomings.“ The panel will feature Silke´s paper “Carne Vale – Flesh in Flux: Ludovico Ottavio Burnacini and the Multisensory Carnival”, Julia´s paper “Odopower in Civic Festivities in the City of London, around 1983 and 1613”, and Freda´s paper ”A Geosensoric Binge: […]

Silke talks about “Speculative Stinking: On Olfactory Rumors“ at the Conference There´s a Rumor going round, held at the ifk Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften Vienna.

Riechen ist ein unmittelbarer, oft unbewusster Sinneseindruck – und doch entfalten Gerüche eine weitreichende Wirkung: Sie prägen, wie wir Räume und Situationen wahrnehmen, wecken Erinnerungen und sind elementar an der Bildung von (Vor-)Urteilen beteiligt. Doch können sie uns auch dabei unterstützen, gewohnte Wahrnehmungsmuster zu durchbrechen und neue Wege des In-Beziehung-Tretens mit der Welt eröffnen? Mit […]

Antrittsvorlesung Univ.-Prof.in Dr.in Silke Felber. Was flüstern die Dinge, sobald wir unseren Augen nicht trauen? Wie lassen sich die Fugen der Zeit ertasten? Und wonach riecht Ungerechtigkeit? In ihrer Antrittsvorlesung lädt Silke Felber dazu ein, Wissensgeschichte nicht nur sinnerfassend, sondern sinneumfassend zu schreiben und zu lesen. Anhand ausgewählter Szenen und Artefakte entfaltet sie die soziokulturellen, ökonomischen, kolonialen, […]

Returning to Taiwan as part of OLFAC’s first phase of fieldwork, Freda Fiala has embarked on a sensory-driven investigation into the socio-material histories of camphor – a once central export commodity derived from the island’s native trees. With its distinctive, medicinal-sharp scent that once permeated forests, workshops, and trade routes, camphor was harvested primarily by […]

ID Design talk der Abteilung Industrial Design. Gerüche gestalten. Sie erinnern, suggerieren, verführen, ziehen an und stoßen ab. Sie kommunizieren wortlos und machen sprachlos. Was duftet, und was stinkt uns? Wie stark sind unsere olfaktorischen Vorlieben und Abneigungen individuell, kulturell oder umweltbedingt geprägt? Kann ein Duft ein Logo ersetzen? Und wie lange riecht ein Neuwagen […]

Zur Macht von Duft und Gestank forschen. Silke Felber im Interview mit dem Printmagazin des IFK – internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften der Kunstuniversität Linz in Wien (Ausgabe 01/2025).