the embodiment of scentsing

Elien Vermoortel, Dominique Willis

2021

The four expressions look to the history of hygiene, where smell is marginalized, covered, or eliminated. These histories influence our distance with smell – we have become disembodied. Smell is subliminal, connected to our emotions and memories, and is the most authentic, untouched, and animal sense of all our senses. The first expression is the act of spitting which is inspired by the history of personal hygiene. The swamp tells of the disease-causing odours plaguing the sanitation of cities. Olfactory buffers are designed in cities to cleanse the air of dangerous odors from pollution. Animal smells such as the smell of fish were regulated in public spaces. These expressions invite you to have an embodied experience with smell and endeavor to create a sublime landscape beyond all possibilities of measurement.

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