Paradise Paradoxe
by Elodie Pong (Switzerland)

Project lead: Elodie Pong
Collaborators: Roman Kaiser, Givaudan Research Department (Scent Development)
Release: March, 2016, Helmhaus Zürich
Website: https://vimeo.com/174489912
Finalist Category: Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent, 2017

The first time we smell anything, our brain files the information in our memory forever; Scent works like the steward of a time machine that can grant us a feeling or spark swirls of emotional memories and achieve a form of historical preservation. WHITE is a scent with a sensation of—it’s there, but not there; In color theory, white is the blending of all colors. The scent contains only reconstituted and synthesized natural components—a transparent tree note, the idea of jasmine flowers, and a touch of salty water... In our times of permanent transformation, the concept was to develop an a-temporal, immaterial work that would stimulate the spectator to think about futurity in a lab-like white-cube space illuminated with artificial light used in phototherapy to affect brain chemicals linked to mood. This limited edition imprints the brain of those who smell it, permanently tattooing the subconscious of the visitors to my exhibitions.

Elodie Pong is an artist currently living in Zurich; Her work has been included in exhibitions & festivals worldwide. 

She has been interested in how smell is subtly involved in every aspect of culture and plays an unspoken connection between people, objects, and places, operating subconsciously as a chemical communication and a fluid vector of identity. Pong considers the olfactory as a liminal space of potential heterotopia.