The Institute for Art and Olfaction is a non-profit organization devoted to advancing public, artistic and experimental engagement with scent. It was founded in 2012.

History

Described as "the West Coast's first organization to explore perfume in a larger arts context", The Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO) was founded in October 2012 by Saskia Wilson-Brown. The IAO opened its experimental studio to the public in downtown Los Angeles in March 2013, moving to

Koreatown A Koreatown (Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula. History Koreatowns as an East Asian ethnic enclave have ...

in March 2014 and to its home on

Chung King Road Chung King Road, along with Chung King Court containing a water fountain in its center, is a pedestrian street complex in the northwest corner of Chinatown, Los Angeles. This street is a part of "New Chinatown," built in the 1930s and 1940s, and wa ...

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

, Los Angeles in March, 2015. The IAO was created to counterbalance what Wilson-Brown perceived as a lack of access and transparency in the fragrance industry. In January 2014, the IAO launched its first large-scale public arts project with ‘A Trip to Japan in Sixteen Minutes, Revisited’ at the

Hammer Museum The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur- ...

. It has since collaborated with Miles Regis,

Zoe Crosher Zoe Crosher (born July, 1975) is an American artist and enthusiast whose work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as the Aspen Art Museum, LACMA, MoMA, and the California Museum of Photography. Crosher lives and works in Los Angele ...

Andrew Berardini Andrew Berardini (born 1982) is an American writer known for his work as a visual art critic and curator in Los Angeles. Described as "the most elegant of all art critic cowboys", Berardini works primarily between genres, which he describes as "q ...

Austin Young Austin Young (born April 12, 1966) is an American photographer, film maker and new media artist based in Los Angeles, known for both celebrity portraits and documentation of sub and trans culture. Young is co-founder of Fallen Fruit, an art c ...

, Marcos Lutyens, Victor Wilde (Bohemian Society), Bettina Hubby,

dublab dublab is a non-profit music public broadcasting internet radio station based in Los Angeles. They have also been involved with art exhibition, film projects, event production, and record releases. These Shows are archived and downloadable on the ...

, Jo Burzynska, Cat Jones, Aleesa Cohene,

Snowblink Snowblink is an indie pop band based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

, Erik Benjamins, Maxwell Williams, The Institute for New Feeling, Hilda Kozarii, Mateo Tannat /

Public Fiction Public Fiction is a curatorial project and quarterly publication based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 2010 by Lauren Mackler. Graphic designer and curator Lauren Mackler moved from the east coast to L.A. to open Public Fiction in 2010. Public ...

Seth Bogart Seth Bogart (born February 28, 1980) is an American multidisciplinary artist. As a musician, he is known for his solo career, as well as Hunx and His Punx and Gravy Train!!!!. As a visual artist, Bogart's paintings and sculptures have been exhib ...

, Regina Mamou and Lara Salmon at Research for the Bermuda Triangle, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulous, and many more artists, writers and musicians. In April 2014, the IAO held the first annual Art and Olfaction Awards, a yearly awards mechanism designed to help celebrate excellence in independent and artisan perfumery. Subsequent award events were held at

Goethe Institute The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and ...

Los Angeles,

, Silent Green Kulturquartier in Berlin,

The Tabernacle The Tabernacle is a mid-size concert hall located in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Opening in 1911 as a church, the building was converted into a music venue in 1996. It is owned and managed by concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment and has a c ...

in London, and Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

Notable projects

* 'A Trip to Japan in Sixteen Minutes, Revisited' (2014): A collaboration led by the IAO, reimagining

Sadakichi Hartmann Carl Sadakichi Hartmann (November 8, 1867 – November 22, 1944) was an American art and photography critic, notable anarchist and poet of German and Japanese descent. Biography Hartmann, born on the artificial island of Dejima, Nagasaki, to ...

's failed scent concert in New York in the early 20th century. Perfume compositions by Sherri Sebastian were propagated using an updated version of

’s scent machine by Eric Vrymoed and Kamil Beski. The whole was elucidated by an audio composition by

Bennett Barbakow Bennett may refer to: People * Bennett (name), including a list of people with the surname and given name Places Canada *Bennett, Alberta *Bennett, British Columbia *Bennett Lake, in the British Columbia and Yukon Territory **Bennett Range **Benne ...

with live foley by Barbakow and Julia Owen. Each guest left with a limited edition program designed by Micah Hahn. The installation/performance took place at

in January 2014. * 'Manifest Destiny' (2013 - 2015): A project by

, with scent creation by the IAO, where the IAO created iterative perfumes to accompany Crosher's billboard installations along the I-10, from Florida to California. The project was produced by Los Angeles Nomadic Division. * 'The Eyes Are Always There' (2015): An installation by Joe Merrell at

Machine Project Machine Project was a Los Angeles based not-for-profit arts organization and community event space. History Founded by Mark Allen, Machine Project launched in 2003 with its inaugural show, ‘Tom Jennings - Story Teller,’ an installation produ ...

in Los Angeles, where the IAO created a series of scents based on testimony from famous UFO abduction cases (including the

Barney and Betty Hill Barney and Betty Hill were an American couple who claimed they were abducted by extraterrestrials in a rural portion of the state of New Hampshire from September 19 to 20, 1961. It was the first widely publicized report of an alien abduction in ...

abduction.) * '

Scent of Mystery ''Scent of Mystery'' is a 1960 mystery film, the first to use the Smell-O-Vision system to release odors at points in the film's plot. It was the first film in which aromas were integral to the story, providing important details to the audience ...

' (2015-2016): A collaborative re-imagining of the original

Smell-O-Vision Smell-O-Vision was a system that released odor during the projection of a film so that the viewer could " smell" what was happening in the movie. The technique was created by Hans Laube and made its only appearance in the 1960 film ''Scent of Mys ...

film, first screened at The National Media Museum in Bradford UK,

The Danish Film Institute The Danish Film Institute ( da, Det Danske Filminstitut) is the national Danish agency responsible for supporting and encouraging film and cinema culture, and for conserving these in the national interest. Also known as ''Filmhuset'' ("the film h ...

in Copenhagen Denmark, and The Arclight Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles during the

TCM Classic Film Festival Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of Atl ...

. * Bienial Scent Fair: A three-day scent fair, co-curated with Darin Klein, featuring independent perfumers. The first event took place at Hammer Museum in 2016. Subsequent events took place at

Craft Contemporary Craft Contemporary, formerly the Craft and Folk Art Museum, is a non-profit, non-collecting arts museum dedicated to showcasing contemporary craft in Los Angeles, California. The museum is located on Los Angeles' Museum Row on Wilshire Boulevard, ...

in Los Angeles. *

The Art and Olfaction Awards The Art and Olfaction Awards are a non-profit award mechanism designed to celebrate excellence in international artisan, experimental and independent perfumery and olfactory art through a yearly blind-judged competition. Mission The organizat ...

: A yearly award mechanism devoted to experimental, artisan and independent perfume practices, which launched in 2013 and had its first event in 2014. * '24 Hours / 15 Scents' (2016): with the

Pulitzer Arts Foundation Pulitzer Arts Foundation is an art museum in St. Louis, Missouri, that presents special exhibitions and public programs. Known informally as the Pulitzer, the museum is located at 3716 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The b ...

in St. Louis, MO. with The Firecracker Press. The olfactory memories of 15 St. Louisans were translated into scent, and printed into a folio with texts by writer Eileen G'Sell. * 'Love Potion No. 9' (2015): A collaborative smell-based speed-dating event with artist Bettina Hubby. * 'Little Trees Mural' (2015): A large scale mural made entirely of

Little Trees Little Trees are disposable air fresheners shaped like a stylized evergreen tree, marketed for use in motor vehicles, and most commonly seen hanging from rear-view mirrors. They are made of a specially formulated absorbent material produced in a ...

Air Fresheners, at

Standard Hotel Standard Hotels is a group of seven boutique hotels in New York City (Meatpacking District and East Village), Miami Beach, London, Maldives, Ibiza, and Hua Hin, Thailand. The hotels are operated by Standard International Management. The two origi ...

in Downtown Los Angeles. *'Art Olfaction Amsterdam' (2018): A pop-up laboratory in collaboration wit
Mediamatic
in Amsterdam. * Scent Language Hackathon (2018): In collaboration with Mediamatic, Klara Ravat, Caro Verbeek, and

Saskia Wilson-Brown Saskia is a Germanic feminine given name. There are at least two different sources of the name. One is of North German and Northeast Netherlands origin, where it originally meant "a Saxon woman" ( metathesis of "Saxia"). Notable people with the nam ...

, a weekend exploration of language and scent, inspired in part by

Sissel Tolaas Sissel Tolaas is a Norwegian artist and researcher known for her work with smell. Sissel Tolaas was born in 1963 in Stavanger, Norway and is now based in Berlin. Tolaas has a background in chemistry, mathematics, linguistics, languages and art ...

‘ work with NASALO. *'Van Eyck Reloaded' (2020): A collaboration with GLIMPS Biolab to create two scent compositions that illustrated important elements found in the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb panel of Van Eyck’s

Ghent Altarpiece The ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'', also called the ''Ghent Altarpiece'' ( nl, De aanbidding van het Lam Gods), is a large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420 ...

(created in 1432). *'Experimental Scent Summit': An annual summit for

olfactory art Olfactory art is an art form that uses scents as a medium. Olfactory art includes perfume as well as other applications of scent. The art form has been a recognized genre since at least 1980. Marcel Duchamp was one of the first artists who pioneer ...

practitioners, researchers and perfumers, in collaboration with Smell Lab Berlin and Klara Ravat. * Perfume Garden (2019-2021): A contemplation garden of aromatics serving the Bell Homeless Shelter in South Los Angeles, in partnership with GrowGood. *'Open Sourcing Smell Culture': A collaborative program explores alternative attribution and sharing strategies for the perfume industry. The program takes the shape of workshops and working groups, and will culminate with the publication of a set of recommendations for open source methodologies in scent creation, perfumery, and related practices. On the way, we will be collecting and publishing formulas, sharing information, and – in so doing – testing the feasibility for open source in the field of perfumery. * Perfume on the Radio : A semi-monthly radio show and podcast exploring the cultures around perfumery, in partnership with

for Lookout FM.

Purpose

Part of The Institute for Art and Olfaction's mission is to create access to perfume education and materials, in line with

's belief that perfumery is "inaccurately seen as elite." The result is that the IAO is considered " ..one of the few places in the country where anyone can learn about the history and process of perfumery." " ..I found access to be extremely limited. ..My approach is, 'Let's all learn together,' so I gathered the resources. And our weekly open-session workshops, part of our mission of creating access, welcome artists, designers, filmmakers, kids from East L.A., both men and women. ..I am not particularly fascinated with perfume as a consumption project. My interest relates to my arts background. The institute is based on the potential to subvert the industry in some way to change how we think about luxury and beauty." The IAO has hosted talks and events by guest speakers including game designer Simon Niedenthal, scent culture scholar artist , Gayil Nalls and

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

professor James McHugh, and has presented workshops, classes or otherwise collaborated with The Getty Center,

The Getty Villa The Getty Villa is at the easterly end of the Malibu coast in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. One of two campuses of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Villa is an edu ...

The Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along w ...

(UK),

Otis College of Art and Design Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aerospace headquarte ...

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...

, The Natural History Museum Los Angeles,

Fowler Museum The Fowler Museum at UCLA, commonly known as The Fowler, and formerly Museum of Cultural History and Fowler Museum of Cultural History, is a museum on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) which explores art and material ...

at UCLA, Huntington Library and Gardens, Scent Culture Institute, amongst others.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Institute for Art and Olfaction Organizations established in 2012 Organizations based in Los Angeles Olfactory art Arts organizations based in California 2012 establishments in California