#5 ”Sensing the Nordic” at the NORDIK 2025 Conference

How do we sense "the Nordic"? Can art and exhibitions evoke Nordic landscapes, histories, climates, and identities through smell, touch, sound, movement, and embodied experience? These questions form the starting point for the session Sensing the Nordic: multisensory art and exhibitions in a Nordic perspective, presented at the NORDIK 2025 conference at the University of Helsinki.

The session brings together researchers from across the Nordic region and beyond to explore multisensory approaches to art history, exhibition design, and scenography. The presentations span historical and contemporary case studies, ranging from modernist explorations of perception to contemporary ecological art and multisensory exhibition design. Together, they address "the Nordic" not only as a geographical region, but also as a sensory construct shaped by climate, memory, cultural imaginaries, materiality, and environmental experience.

Several contributions also engage directly with scenographic thinking: how exhibitions choreograph embodied encounters, how environments activate sensory memory, and how multisensory design can deepen our understanding of sustainability, heritage, and place.

Below follows the full session abstract and programme for Sensing the Nordic at NORDIK 2025.

Sensing the Nordic: multisensory art and exhibitions in a Nordic perspective

What constitutes "the Nordic", and how does it engage our senses within the realms of art and art history? This session explores the implications of a multisensory approach for understanding Nordic art, here defined as art that is inspired by, or problematizes, themes of nature, cultural history, or contemporary life and culture in the Nordic region. Can a sensory perspective enable us to encounter the Nordic in art and exhibitions in novel ways? The emphasis on visual culture has significantly broadened the field of art history, fostering a less hierarchical and more empirical outlook on what constitutes compelling objects of study. However, in this process, the sensory dimensions of experiencing art may have been overlooked. Art history transcends the visual: our encounters with artworks engage all the senses. As W.J.T. Mitchell (2005) notes: "There are no visual media", indicating that all visual experiences simultaneously evoke other sensory reactions and memories. Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in the multisensory aspects of art. Investigations into olfactory, auditory, gustatory, and tactile dimensions reveal that sensory communication holds significant potential for enriching our understanding of both historical and contemporary art.

This session examines how non-visual aspects are employed in artworks and exhibitions within a Nordic context, with papers addressing olfactory, gustatory, auditory, tactile, or multisensory artworks and exhibition designs. Case studies range from early twentieth-century explorations of the "modern sensorium" to contemporary ecological art, multisensory scenography, and haptic engagements with Nordic landscapes. "The Nordic" is approached variously as a geographical location, a cultural and artistic heritage, an environmental condition, and a broader source of inspiration.

Keywords: multisensory art; sensory activation; olfactory art; gustatory art; haptic art; auditory art

Session chair: Dr. Viveka Kjellmer, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, Department of Cultural Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Date: Monday, October 20th
Time: 11.00–12.30 + 14.00–15.30
Location: F3010, 3rd Floor

Part I: 11.00-12.30

Introduction. Nordic Scent and Multisensory Exhibition Design: understanding and describing olfaction in art, Viveka Kjellmer, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, University of Gothenburg

The Modern Sensorium of Per Krohg and Isaac Grünewald, MaryClaire Pappas, Professor of Art History, Savannah College of Art and Design

An Inner and Outer Space: a 1970s multisensory Norwegian installation, Frida Forsgren, Associate Professor in Art History, University of Agder

Olfactory Orientations and Disorientations of the Nordic in Contemporary Art, Karin Silverin, PhD Candidate in Art History and Visual Studies, Gothenburg University

Part II: 14.00-15.30

Scenography of Sustainability: embodied encounters and agency in the exhibition spaces of Louisiana Museum of Contemporary Art, Olga Nikolaeva, PhD, Independent Scholar

How to Dance with a Tree: Nordic ecological art in the times of climate change, Mårten Snickare, Professor of Art History, Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University

Experiencing Icelandic Snowscapes across the Haptic Sense, Ivan Juarez, Assistant Professor, Researcher, and Lecturer, Faculty of Planning and Design, The Agricultural University of Iceland

Scenographic Snow: art historical approaches to Henrik Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman, Astrid von Rosen, Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, Director of the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, University of Gothenburg