February 12–June 5, 2022
The Museum of Craft and Design presents Living with Scents featuring 40 international designers whose work participates in the growing culturalization of all things olfactory. By considering the interactions of minds, bodies, and things, the designers mediate scents in innovative ways to raise a form of new sensory awareness. Guest curated by Elisabetta Pisu (Rome, Italy) and Clara Muller (Paris, France), this exhibition focuses on creative and artful interfaces to deliver scents with manifold design outcomes, from the hedonic to the functional. Structured into five sections, the exhibition highlights major dimensions, themes, and approaches to olfactory design.
Ways of Sensing. Olfactory Culture and Contemplation
Dedicated to the aesthetic and cultural value of scents, all the objects in this part of the exhibition prompt focused attention that highlights the remarkable capacities of our nose and olfactory brain.
Nose Meets the Eye. The Power and Beauty of Nature
Challenged by the need to create objects situated between beauty and efficiency, these designers work with a range of low-tech diffusing techniques and put an emphasis on materials, shapes, textures, and motions inspired by natural resources, forms, and phenomena.
The Scent of Care. Health and Wellbeing
Throughout history, scents have been used to prevent and treat issues surrounding our physiological and psychological health, but the scents typically need interfaces in order to be properly used. The designers in this section have created objects that allow scents and fragrances to interact with and act on the body in beneficial ways.
A Scented Art of Living. A New Sense of Presence and Pleasure
This section looks at innovative designs that introduce smells in our day-to-day environment. Some designers have created practical and decorative objects designed to perfume the spaces we live in, moving away from the traditional room spray, incense holder, or scented candle. Others challenge the way we perceive and interact with mundane objects by giving them an unexpected redolent dimension.
Spray it, Don’t Say it. Communication, Emotion, and Memory
This section explores modes of communication and remembering through olfaction. These designers explore the possibilities of creating meaningful interactions by deliberately communicating and engaging with one another, and with non-humans, through the sense of smell.
Working with and around the sense of smell, taking into account its neurobiological, historical, social, and aesthetic specificities, the designers in this exhibition attempt to change the way we relate to and interact with the world. Their informed efforts are an incentive to use our nose to observe objects from a different point of view, and conversely to use objects to make sense out of smell in novel ways.
Learn more about the exhibition, book your tickets, and experience the 360 virtual walkthrough of Living with Scents online here.
Participating designers/artists
Claudia Adiwijaya, atelier oï, Lena Beigel, Gilles Belley, Carla Bengtson, José Bermúdez, Sofia Caraza, Peter de Cupere, Julie de Mol, Ebram Investments, Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael, Philipp Emrich, Antonio Gardoni, JIA Design Team – Spencer Hung, Kaja Solgaard Dahl for Atelier Kaja Dahl, Karen Campa, Katie Dobberstein, Fabien Florek, Corinna Hartinger, Kin Objects, Jody Kocken, Zsofia Kollar, Noé Duchaufour Lawrance, Ani Liu, Monica Förster Design Studio, Nendo, Lizzie Ostrom (Odette Toilette), OVR Technology, Patrick Palcic, Sara Ricciardi, Charline Ronzon-Jaricot, Rui Pereira and Ryosuke Fukusada, Lena Saleh, Ariane Shirvani, Susana Soares, Studio Forest & Whale by Wendy Chua and Gustavo Maggio, studio Outofstock, Tipstudio, Unfold Studio (in collaboration with Barnabé Fillion), Liza Witte, Zanellato/Bortotto Studio.
The exhibition is an IMF Foundation production in collaboration with the EP Studio. This program is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York. Additional support for Living with Scents is provided by NEZ and Ritual Coffee Roasters.
MCD’s exhibitions and programs are generously supported by Grants for the Arts. Additional support is provided by Hunter Douglas and Dorothy Saxe.
