Neylan

Ogutveren Aular

I am a doctoral researcher in Landscape Studies at the University of Turku, funded through the JUNO Doctoral Programme in the Humanities. My research examines plastic waste in Nordic urban environments, with particular attention to the persistence and circulation of micro- and nanoplastics in everyday life. Through sensory walking, dérive, and multisensory attunement, I explore how plastic is encountered not only visually, but also through textures, smells, sounds, and atmospheric traces.

My dissertation, Plastic Waste Entanglements: Sensory Encounters in the Urbanscape of Turku, asks what it means to inhabit a city where plastic is ubiquitous yet designed to remain unnoticed, and how embodied sensory inquiry might engage forms of material presence that remain difficult to perceive directly.