Sensoriography

Location: Environmental Science Center (WZU), University of Augsburg

The international research group “Off the Menu: Appetites, Culture, and Environment,” which is led by RCC alumna and former editorial director Dr. des. L. Sasha Gora, is delighted to invite its first guest researcher to the University of Augsburg, Maya Hey. As part of her visit to Bavaria, Hey will help organize a workshop, centered on multispecies ethnography and titled “Sensoriography,” at the WZU, University of Augsburg. 

The workshop will focus on the methods, tools, and documentation practices for multispecies ethnography. In the first half of the workshop, participants will gather, sample, and evaluate existing practices for conducting research with other organisms. The second half is more experimental—with sensory and immersive activities to spark discussions about how to process and store data after moments of multispecies encounter. By the end of the workshop, participants will have engaged with a range of methods and have a series of written reflections as tangible takeaways. Participants will be asked to bring an artifact that represents their multispecies research.

All are welcome to participate in the workshop but the number of participants is limited, so we kindly ask that you register by emailing Sasha Gora at sasha.gora@uni-a.de before 7 February 2024. 

Maya Hey is an expert on human-microbe relations in food settings. She holds degrees in dietetics, food studies, and communications and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on fermentation as a hands-on practice to better understand microbes and work with them. Her current research consists of developing embodied and sensory methods to detect microbes; studying the intersection of ferments and health/sustainability rhetorics; and theorizing the gut as a mediator for human-microbe relationships. Her work has brought her to preschools, chemistry labs, commercial kitchens, organic farms, food banks, and retail markets, where she has gathered over 15 years of experience in facilitating discussions about contemporary food and health issues. She leads the organization fff|food feminism fermentation and is passionate about pedagogy.

Maya Hey will be giving a talk on “Tracing the Fermentation Revival: How Microbial Logics Shape Alternative Health-Food-Sustainability Crises” to accompany the workshop. The talk will take place at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich the day before the workshop, on 28 February 2024.