Exhibiting at Platforms Project involved invigilating in our exhibition space 8 hours a day for 4 days. As such, it afforded me a lot of time, and I sought to utilise that time effectively to contemplate and theorise on new directions Perfume as Practice could take.
While I will always strive to exhibit 2 solo shows a year based on perfume portraiture, there are other avenues I wish to explore in an effort to widen my understanding of what perfume can be when contemplated from a contemporary art platform. One such avenue is an understanding of the capacity perfumery has for emotional responses.
By this, I mean that I want my audience to respond to my perfumes in a raw, honest way similar to how other art forms can evoke emotional responses. Often, people will tell me how a perfume I have made makes them recall certain events and experiences, no doubt due to the links scent has to memory. This is not exactly what I want to achieve. I want to see if an audience can feel a base emotion, such as love, hate, happiness or sadness without any caveats associated with memory.
It’s a seemingly simple premise, and its art functioning at its most basic level. But so strong are the links scent has to memory that I don’t know if it can be achieved. So I have decided to use a few aesthetics and visual cues that will allow an audience to respond to the perfumes within the context of emoji’s. Yes. Emoji’s.
You see, emoji’s too, function on a basic level. They are instant like the instant hint of top note you get when you spray a perfume. They can be dismissed and evaporate into the subconscious as quickly as an Eau De Toilette evaporates into the air. Fusing the craft of perfumery with the visual language of emoji’s seems to make sense. But how viable is it in practice, and how will an audience respond to it? Well, I’ll be trailing the idea at Horsforth Walk of Art, Leeds, in July. So I guess we’ll find out then!
