IF THERE EVER WAS

– an exhibition of extinct and impossible smells –

collective exhibition (2008)

exhibition venue : Reg Vardy Gallery, Sunderland, U.K.

curator : Robert Blackson

CURATORIAL TEXT

Scent is the essence of physical presence and lends proof to our surroundings. Contrastingly, the fourteen scents commissioned for this exhibition are inspired by absence. Their forms are drawn from disparate stories throughout history for which few, if any, objects remain. Our relationship to each of these scents is guided by an accompanying text. These words are not intended to direct interpretation, but to set a stage for the scent to fill. To know something by its scent alone, as a pure “olfactory image” is a rare event, and it is with this intention that the exhibition has been arranged as you would a cabinet of intangible curiosities.

MY CONTRIBUTION

What I’ve made for this exhibition was the scent of body odor; the scent of East Germany citizen that got captured his/her own body odor without being aware of it.

Body odor collection, Stasi Museum, Berlin Germany

Body Odour

On December 28, 1989, a slim young woman named Susanne Böden was handing out leaf lets in East Berlin with her little sister. The leaf lets promoted f ree speech for citizens of the Deutsche Democratic Republic. Shortly after she started handing them out, Susanne was arrested by the Stasi, or East German secret police. She stood trial at Stasi headquarters in East Berlin and was served with a caution. Before being released, the Stasi gave her a square of fabric to wipe against the back of her neck. This fabric was then kept by the Stasi in a sealed jar with her name on it.

A person’s body odour is as distinctive and traceable as a fingerprint. The Stasi tracked the movements of suspected dissenters with trained sniffer dogs. To get the scent of their suspects, the Stasi employed a variety of methods such as breaking into apartments and stealing dirty clothes or sitting suspects in a heated room for questioning. The Stasi would then save a patch of fabric from this chair’s upholstery that had absorbed the suspect’s body odour.

The Berlin Wall f ell within months of Susanne’s trial. During the ensuing celebrations Stasi Headquarters were ransacked. Inside a small room at the headquarters, revellers found hundreds of jars labelled with people’s names and stuffed with bits of fabric.

Scent by Maki Ueda

(text by Robert Blackson, curator)

DEVELOPMENT

Like I always do I made the extracts from the scratch.

the first experiment:

extracting sweat from my own clothes

the second experiment:

We smell of what we eat. I’ve used whatever I could find in the kitchen for extraction, and then composed “an body odor” with them.

More documentations: http://scent-lab.blogspot.com/search/label/%5BIf%20There%20Ever%20Was%5D

BOOK

This is the catalogue of the exhibition If there ever was　- an exhibition of extinct and impossible smells – . All the smells exhibited are printed with microencapsulation. It’s the book for scratch & sniff.

If There Ever Was: a book of extinct and impossible smells

ISBN: 978-0-9557478-0-9 (rrp £12.00) * SOLD OUT *

distributed by: Cornerhouse, www.cornerhouse.org

published by: Art Editions North

Hoever the book is sold out, the text of the book can be viewed here : “IF THERE EVER WAS – TEXT”

SMELL AND ART – syllabus

Smell and Art
Maki Ueda

What is it that we are smelling, what does it make you imagine, what does it make you feel? Could we incorporate the olfactory sense in art? Could smell be a medium carrying information?

This course will deal with these questions through a combination of lectures, workshops, intermediate presentations and a final presentation.

In this course we will start with looking at examples of art and the olfactory sense, then we will discuss the potential of the olfactory sense in art.

The workshops will first focus on fieldwork and on observing the environment with the olfactory sense. You will smell a lot and learn how to communicate about smell with others, using a basic vocabulary for analyzing and expressing the character of a smell.

Secondly we will extract smells from raw materials like soup, cheese burgers, old books, rubber tyres, flowers, and smelly T-shirts. You will learn how to do this yourself and how to compose new smells (in the most simple way).

In this course you will

(have to) smell a lot
learn about smell and olfaction
find another (hidden) dimension in the world
become aware of smell and that leads to a joyful, healthy, and long life (!)

There are many ways of using smell in art. You might want to perfume orange smell to your orange-colored painting, or you might want to add rose smell in an exhibition space where you show an installation that symbolizes love.

Most of the people only see the practical side of smell. Smell is like an additives that gives a good side-effect: it functions to make you feel relaxed or happy.

What we want to achieve in this course is a bit deeper than this.

Smell has a great potential as a medium. Let’s use this course as a place to experiment. We’ll focus onthe theme smell and communication. You’ll receive an final assignment (mini-project) under the theme of “olfactory game“.

EXHIBITION IN SPAIN: OLCATOSCAPE

SENSXPERIMENT

http://www.sensxperiment.es/

20.10.2011. – 12.11.2011.

OPENING: 20.10.2011. @ LUCENA (CORDOBA), SPAIN

20th October – 12th November 2011. Lucena-Córdoba

After ten years of activity Sensxperiment International Creation Meeting will be organized in a triennial basis, so most activities of the current eleventh edition will take place in October and November 2011, mainly in Lucena and Cordoba, Spain.

The topic chosen for this edition is ‘Sensory Immersion’.

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