Contribution short abstract:

As snow as a tangible phenomena is disappearing and/or changing it is important to collect memories of snow and to understand cultural meanings of snow, be it both the "real" snow and the symbolic snow materialized with for example plastic and cotton.

Contribution long abstract:

My research interests usually have embodiment, performance and staging in focus. Given the acute state of climate change I have started to think about staging, symbolic objects and how meanings of said objects change as the climate change. The focus of my current research interest is meanings and memories of snow. I would like to go deeper into everyday cultural meanings and memories of snow in the light of snow as vanishing and/or changing due to global warming.

This workshop would bring the possibility to discuss and learn with other scholars and in collaboration think with sensory ethnography, an approach that seems very fitting when it comes to snow and its aspect of being both tangible and vanishing.

A more concrete aspect that I would like to bring to this workshop and discuss is how “snow that is not snow” is visible in everyday surroundings. I am thinking of things visible during especially Christmas time; cotton that is supposed to look like snow, or snow men made of plastic. As speaking/thinking from a geographical position in the world where snow used to be prevalent during winter months the symbolic objects of snow raises questions about how this staged snow can be understood. As snow is not as prevalent as it used to be, how can the prevalence of the “snow that is not snow” be understood?