REFLECTIONS on SENTIENCE
Cohort Testimonials
The Smell of the Forest's Entangled Life
By Samin Lee
Many of us strive to embody the essence of the forest in our daily lives. Lighting a candle promising the experience of wandering in the boreal forest brings pine needles, birch sap, woodland mosses, and lily of the valley into the home. The natural world is bottled.
The relax sound box creates the sensation of standing by an open window in a wooden cabin deep in the wilds or by the lake. A window in the living room, facing the building next door, is covered with a forest-themed fabric poster. Freshly scented hands carry powdery, earthy, mossy traces of bark and soil.
Biophilic design has compensated for the absence of nature through sensory substitutes. They respond to an innate human desire to connect with nature and natural systems, promising the calm that forests once provided and supported by research showing benefits such as relaxation, stress relief, lowered blood pressure, and a quieter mind.
My dialogue with the sentient forest in Lapland revealed that the forest is more than something measurable or navigable. When I encounter the idea that robotic mediation might foster interconnectedness with the forest, I couldn’t quite let go of my awkward feeling. Humans long to reconnect with nature, and perhaps what we seek has been simple all along if we understand that humans and more-than-human beings meet through the senses. Among them, smell stands out as a quiet medium for navigating these relationships.
Kneeling to bring one's nose close to the ground to smell moss or mushrooms, wrapping both hands around a pine to sense the breath of its trunk, or crushing a bit of sticky resin between fingers to release its scent may feel less “natural” than inhaling the fragrance of a diffuser that contains these all. Despite that strange discomfort, you might find a gift from the forest, one saturated with cycles of life and death, with a constant flow of sensory substances and signals. It could be elusive, and its ways are enigmatic, with some tenderness, some preciousness, and some playfulness.
There is a question I keep grappling with: “what if our bodies are part of the solution to the climate crisis?”. The forest offers a way to think through this, a dizzying web of entangled life where invisible molecules move through soil, air, and bodies. I thank the sentient forest for reminding me that my life is not my own design but a passing moment in the long breath of the earth, a brief time entrusted to care for what continues beyond me.
All images on this page are copyright of the artist Samin Lee.
Top: 'Olfactory Dialogues' (2024). Colour photograph. 25.6 cm x 34.1 cm.