Résonance
**Meeting with Karoline Straczek: Société POTOP and politics of smell **
2026
Oct 27, 2026
Free admission
Venues and dates
-
ESAAA, École supérieure d’art Annecy Alpes
-
Fromto10h00 – 18h00
-
Prices
Free admission
During this event, Karoline Straczek, an artist-researcher affiliated with the Annecy-Alpes School of Art, will discuss her research on the politics of smell through the artistic collective entity Société POTOP.
Société POTOP is a multifaceted artistic entity. Somewhere between a total work of art, a diffuse fiction, and a temporary collective, it transforms itself according to the context in which it finds itself. Today, it invites students, professors, guest speakers, and public to build an ephemeral community of smellers.
Through these sensitive and invisible prisms, Société POTOP observes, transforms, practices, thinks, writes, poeticizes, and politicizes the worlds around it. Smells, through their atmospheric dimension, become material for thought. I explore in particular the political and social dimensions of the olfactory—or how smell constitutes a parameter of collective space and the construction of the common.
If scent is political, can’t art become an act of micro-resistance or olfactory emancipation? These are the questions that drive Société POTOP, which explores ways to activate the imagination through the sense of smell.
Audience
All ages, from 17 years old
Duration
02:00
In the same event
ESAAA, École supérieure d’art Annecy Alpes
During this talk, Pascale Obolo will outline the various commitments that shape her life as an artist, filmmaker-researcher, edithor of the journal Afrikadaa, and curator, focusing on the themes of collectives and the commons. Together, we will gradually shift our focus toward the sensory and olfactory dimensions evoked by the concept of the commons.
ESAAA, École supérieure d’art Annecy Alpes
Jessica Mignot, a philosopher by training and editor of Nez magazine, invites us to join a sensory revolution through her decolonial and activist reflections. During this event, we will share a collective experience of olfactory disalienation.
ESAAA, École supérieure d’art Annecy Alpes
How does our social identity influence our perception of the world? From an olfactory perspective, this remains a great mystery. Géraldine Coppin, a professor of psychology at UniDistance Suisse and an associate member of the Interfaculty Center for Affective Sciences, will be joining us to present a scientific experiment prepared specifically for this event.