Current Smells of Switzerland at OLFAC. Sensing Across the Humanities, Sciences and Arts, Vienna, 3–5 December 2025

ifk Internationales Forschungszentrum, Kulturwissenschaften, Reichsratsstraße 17, 1010 Vienna

Organized by Silke Felber, Freda Fiala, Julia Ostwald, and the research projectOLFAC. Exploring the Intervening Performativity of Smell,funded by the European Research Council (ERC)

Current Smells of Switzerland

Currently I am working on a Swiss National Fund–funded research project with the working title The Smell of Switzerland. My research starts with historian Jonathan Reinartz’s thesis that the loved ones smell well and the unknown reek (Reinartz, 2013). On that note, I aim to identify current Swiss smell-based signifiers for processes of othering and inclusion in contemporary social relationships, political structures, or identity politics within a complex Swiss-ness, which navigates multilingualism and multiculturalism, evolving concepts of immigration, a distinct geography, and urban–rural disparity. To do so, I focus also on current artistic practices that include smell as a way to convey comments on belonging and othering. I will present three diverse art projects in the context of the research project: With Eau de Glacier (2024), Noah Ismael Wyss presents a fragrance installation that produces a specially created essence of glacier water. His project is a relic of the past and reminds us about the transience of the Swiss environment. Isabell Bullerschen works on a multi-sensory mixed-reality installation named ipersia, a journey towards fluid definitions and unstable categories. ipseria exists as a mono- or multi-entity association in the mucus of vertebral organisms. Their features are akin to atoms, box jelly fish, slime molds, leopard slugs, or social amoebas. In Schmerzh, Olivia Wiederkehr installed a specially composed scent in six different locations in Zürich, bringing past pain to the surface. The unexpected medium bypassed rational thought, awakened personal as well as collective memories, and stimulated reflection.