Whispersof Pastroral scents

Indu Antony

2025

Olfactory art

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This project is an olfactory exploration of the pastoral communities of the Deccan Plateau, focusing on smell as a vital medium to understand culture, memory, and ecology. Pastoral life in this landscape is shaped not only by movement, labor, and traditions but also by an invisible world of scents that anchor people to their environment. The smoke from household fires, the earthy fragrance of rain on dry soil, the pungency of dung used as fuel, the musty aroma of stored fodder, and the warmth of livestock together create a layered olfactory map of everyday life.
Unlike visual or textual archives, smell is transient and often neglected in documentation, yet it carries deep emotional and mnemonic weight. It has the power to evoke belonging, nostalgia, and cultural identity, connecting individuals to their lived histories in profound ways. This project seeks to capture and curate these ephemeral traces of pastoral existence in the Deccan Plateau, foregrounding them as an essential part of community narratives. The methodology includes smell mapping, journaling, and on-site olfactory collection during field visits, alongside dialogues with community members to understand how scents are perceived, remembered, and valued in their daily lives. These smells—whether of seasonal changes, animal life, or human activity—will be transformed into
a sensory installation that invites audiences to experience pastoral life through immersion in smellscapes. By shifting attention from the dominance of sight to the intimacy of
smell, the project reimagines how culture and memory can be experienced. It emphasizes the fragile continuity of pastoral practices and offers an alternate way of sensing the Deccan Plateau: not through distant observation, but through air, breath, and the most elemental of our senses.