Sensory transformations - SENSOTRA

Transgenerational Environmental Relationships in Europe, 1950-2020.

SENSOTRA was a European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant funded project. The project produced new understandings of the changes in people’s sensory environmental relationships in three European cities during a particular period in history, 1950–2020.

It offered a focused window on cultural transformations of the sensory by introducing a new transgenerational methodology, ethnographic “sensobiography”. Ethnographic research was conducted on generations born in the 1930s and 1940s—those who grew up before the digital age—as well as on digital natives born into a world of smart devices, where maintaining complex environmental relationships presents new challenges. The project facilitated a significant step from earlier methodologies toward large-scale, multisensory, transgenerational investigation, providing significant insights into culture with a sustainable future.

The project’s three research strands were: transformations in mediations of sensory experience, embodied remembering and senses, and sensory commons.

The project was carried out in collaboration with artists from various disciplines and was the most extensive empirical study of sensory environmental experiences to date. It was conducted in three medium-sized European cities: Ljubljana (Slovenia), Turku (Finland), and Brighton (United Kingdom).