Sensory Entanglements: Decolonizing the Senses is an exhibit produced by a team of Indigenous, Métis and non-Indigenous artists, scholars, and curators based in the lands currently known as Canada and Australia.

The exhibit stems from a research-creation project that explored how the senses, human and beyond, participate in cultural world-making. We began in 2014 and worked thinking-making together until 2021.

In the period 2018-2020. collaborative teams led by Indigenous artists combined cultural specific practices and knowledges and emerging technologies to create three immersive sensory environments.

We planned to show the installations in their physical form at the Uncommon Senses III conference and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in Montreal in May 2020. However, the onslaught of the pandemic prevented us from gathering and exchanging around them in person.

This web platform, and the video iterations of the works it showcases, was created to bring us (our team and you) into virtual contact. The following video presents an introduction to the artworks and the project at large. It is from the virtual roundtable we staged at ISEA 2020 in October 2020.

The SE team was directed by Chris Salter, holder of the Concordia University Research Chair in New Media, Technology and the Senses. Our research and creative activities were made possible by a grant from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a project entitled “Sensory Entanglements: New Cross-Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Directions in the Creation and Evaluation of Multi-Sensorial Environments” (2014-2021).

The following video is a recording of the virtual roundtable involving all members of the SE team presented at ISEA 2020.