Siôn Parkinson

Siôn Parkinson is a visual artist, composer, performer and writer investigating our sensory relationship with the more-than-human world. His first book, Stinkhorn: How Nature’s Most Foul-Smelling Mushroom Can Change The Way We Listen (Sternberg Press/MIT Press, 2024/25), considers how the odour of the stinkhorn fungus can act as a listening device to connect sound and smell, showing how decomposition might inform musical composition. Siôn is a research fellow at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, where he leads a project on the olfactory heritage of fungi: the ways mushroom smells carry personal or cultural meaning. He trained as a sculptor at the Slade School of Art and completed a PhD in sound studies at the University of Leeds, where he was an Amanda Burton Scholar.