Snail Stories
CONTEXT
Master Design Programme,
Iceland University of the Arts
CONCEPT, WRITING
Miriam Reihl
EXHIBITION︎︎︎ MENGI, Reykjavík
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Thomas Pausz
YEAR
since 2017
Snail Stories explores alternative forms of human intimacy and communication through the perceptual logic of snails, guided by smell, touch, and taste rather than vision or language. Combining speculative fiction, interspecies perception, and sensorial inquiry, the project reimagines social relations through multisensory and nonverbal modes of exchange.
Using fictional letters, Snail Stories investigates how sensory hierarchies shape empathy, desire, and social interaction. What would happen if humans communicated primarily through scent trails and chemical traces? Would smell influence emotional attachment and social behavior? How would intimacy shift if every human being, like the snail, possessed both sexual organs? Or if we consumed our immediate environment while inhabiting it?
Through immersive narratives and perceptual speculation, the project proposes alternative forms of coexistence that challenge anthropocentric understandings of communication, sexuality, and embodiment.
GALLERY,
TEXTS
Snails perceive their environment very differently from humans. They are almost blind and deaf, and rely primarily on their highly developed senses of smell, taste, and touch. They follow scent trails that lead them to food, moving slowly along these traces until they reach the source, which they consume on the spot. In doing so, they quite literally eat their surroundings, absorbing what they have just passed over. What would it mean to inhabit a world in this way? To follow a trace, and to take in what we encounter?
︎︎︎
Dear Friend,
I have to tell you about an experience I had recently. You know, one of these magical days: the first rain after a long period of drought. I already tried to avoid leaving my place; it was not only that the dryness was uncomfortable, it was more that the air was overfilled with scents. Scents from the past, hanging around, suggesting a source.
I got stressed by these excessive offers, where only a fraction was available in reality. Also, others around me seemed to go in circles, trying to catch their illusions. At last, this came to an end with the fresh rain, erasing every trace. And for a short moment there is nothing — only emptiness, only void. Then, one after the other, the fresh scents emerge, and the hunt starts.
I was fast on my way, and while I was following the trace, my jumping anticipation was just leaking out of me.
This special moment I’m sharing with you is the moment when the source spreads into the air and your imagination spins around in delicious expectation.
Snails communicate through smell, taste, and touch. They exchange information not only through their body scent, but also through the slimy trails they leave behind. These traces carry signals: they reveal whether a snail is frightened, calm, or ready to mate. Their communication is entirely embodied — transparent, involuntary, and deeply honest. What if we, too, continuously released such information, open to be sensed by those around us?
︎︎︎
Dear Friend,
Do you remember the first time we met and how distant, stiff and formal I was?
I still recall how desperately I tried to hide my emotions and thoughts. I spent a lot of time on preparation. Already in the morning I started to mask myself in layers of scent to cover my own smell and emotions. My costume was jagged, making my silhouette seem taller. Of course you should never trust your eyes, but there is always this first impression. My intention was to get control over my appearance — no weakness, no insight.
Facing your purity was almost shocking: honest in your shape, smell and, as I later found out, also in your taste. Nothing was hidden, nothing added. No secrets, nothing fake and above all: no need for it.
It was clear what you wanted and easy to shape our compromise. I’m still grateful that I met you — confident in your being and open to guiding me.
Many snail species are both male and female at once, carrying the potential to fertilise and to be fertilised. During mating, they pierce each other with so-called love darts. The snail that is struck becomes more likely to carry the eggs. Fertilisation and egg-carrying demand significant bodily effort, so each snail instinctively attempts to shift this responsibility onto the other. What if we too were fluid in our sex, shifting between roles, sharing the physical and emotional labour of reproduction?
︎︎︎
Dear Love,
One day there was this short moment when I understood how little separates us from being friends or partners. Words cannot express what caused this situation.
There was this new smell. I can’t remember ever thinking about your body odour. It always felt unimposing, neutral and kind of familiar. Now there was this change. Was it still you? It was not that you lost your smell, it seemed that something was added. As if you were evaporating, odour flowed from your skin in increasingly intense waves, filling the air. Your smell made me want to come closer and breathe in deeply, let the aeriform image of you enter my body, and it screamed:
I WANT YOU! I‘LL SHOOT YOU! SO YOU WILL BE MINE AND I‘LL BE ONLY YOURS!
Hit by your dart, I understood that there was no way out. We stay fluid until one version solidifies.
My Girl. My Boy. My Love.
