Olfactory Imprinting - the smelly stuff

Every aspect of salmon's lives are influenced by olfaction, for example; reproduction, feeding, avoiding predators and migration. Hormonal and environmental factors work together to influence olfactory imprinting. This is a highly specialised form of unconditional learning acquired early in life and then used later in a specific context such as migration. When in the ocean Atlantic salmon detect magnetic fields to aid migration and once they are closer to their natal river olfactory imprinting helps them to navigate upstream to spawn. They can literally "smell home". 

Therefore, aroma and very specific aromas will form an integral part of my work. I already own a Dale Air vortex unit which I've used in previous exhibitions to fill the space with the smell of the sea.  www.daleair.com  Below are just a few of my olfactory experiences of Northumberland.

The distinctive smell of damp and mossy stone at Black Middens Bastle.

To reacquaint myself with ideas about aroma I've just finished reading two excellent books, Jacaboson's Organ and the Remarkable Nature of Smell by Lyall Watson, published in 1999 by the  Penguin Group, followed by Aroma the Cultural History of Smell by Constance Classen, David Howes and Anthony Synnott published in 1994 by Routledge, London.
Bracken and pine somewhere near Kielder.

Amazing changes of light and weather at Whin Sill, Hadrian's Wall.  Rain, wet earth and the interior of a warm car.

Ummm.... ripe quince from a kind person in Corbridge.

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