OLFACTORY ART
STORY CRAFT: TWELVE OLFACTORY NARRATIVES
The Institute for Art & Olfaction
Group exhibition, in collaboration with Craft Contemporary
In the summer of 2025, twelve perfumers were invited to explore storytelling during a residency at Craft Contemporary, in Los Angeles. Every Saturday, an invited perfumer spent six hours exploring a curated set of materials provided by MANE, deploying them to create an olfactory interpretation of a myth, a cultural memory, or an artwork. Sometimes delightful, sometimes troubling, the resulting scents each convey a narrative that can be uncovered with patient, thoughtful smelling.
The IAO is thrilled to present these olfactory explorations in an exhibition at IAO Gallery. Expanding on their work at Craft Contemporary, the perfumers participating in Storycraft were asked to further contextualize their work with an image or small object. The resulting exhibition thus presents their olfactory work in a new context, exploring fundamental questions about scent’s creative capacity. Does scent benefit from being paired with visual and textual forms? How does imagery impact our perception of an olfactory narrative?
Storycraft: Twelve Olfactory Narratives is produced in collaboration with Craft Contemporary, and is exhibited in tandem with the ongoing residency and installation, IAO Storylab at Craft Contemporary on view through October 26, 2025.
Participating Perfumers:
Dana El Masri (Jazmin Saraï)
“Beyond theology, borders and modern dogma.
The worship of this pre-Islamic goddess was in fact, real, trans-culturally and geographically vast. Specifically; Palmyra, Salkhad, Wadi Rumm, Hatra, Al-Ula, Ta’ïf, Dura-Europos. There have also been different iterations and associations with her depending on the place and language.
Shrines dedicated to Allat were built in rocky deserts and dry lands, with similar geo-coordinates, representing open-air sacred spaces. There was no bloodshed of animals or humans allowed around any of her shrines, nor was there any felling of plants and trees. The landscape plays an important role, creating a sanctuary within the mountains and desert.
Allat was the protectress of the borderland, of migrants on their journeys across the desert. She was invoked for joy, mercy, well-being, ease, peace, prosperity and protection. With some curses on revenge and anyone who destroyed the carvings!
Her iconographic representations were male lions and gazelles. Inscribed in petroglyphs, her shrines were crafted from granite, sometimes limestone and other types of rock forms. One could also find gold, onyx and silver castings.”
Raw Materials Used:
Black Pepper Jungle Essence, Cedarwood EO, Cedramber, Chamomile EO, Cistus Absolute, Cis-3-hexenyl Salicylate, Copaiba Balsam, Herboxane, Precyclemone Beta, Shangralide
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Participing Perfumers:
Daniel Krasofski (The Institute for Art and Olfaction)
Debbie Lin + Na-Moya Lawrence (Samar)
Joe Merrell (The Eyes are Always There)
Julianne Lee (The Institute for Art and Olfaction)
L’lia ‘Tizzle’ Thomas (Aromakaura)
Maxwell Williams (UFO Parfums)
Minetta Rogers (The Institute for Art and Olfaction)
Miss Layla (fum Fragrances)
Persephenie (Persephenie Botanicals)
Saskia Wilson-Brown (The Institute for Art and Olfaction)
Terry Carter (Travertine Atelier)
Image courtesy of the IAO.
THE BIRDS ARE CHIRPING ABOVE THE TREE
Retrospective Exhibition of Hamid Zénati’s life and work.
Commissioned by curator Nadine Nour el Din.
B7L9 ART CENTRE
THE KAMEL LAZAAR FOUNDATION AND THE HAMID ZÉNATI ESTATE
Hyperallergic Article.
“The Birds Are Chirping Above the Tree” — a phrase that carries the soft echoes of childhood, the first whispers of language, and the profound connection between words, images, and memory, as reflected in the artist Hamid Zénati’s very first Arabic lesson, learned in Algeria.
The Fondation Kamel Lazaar and the Hamid Zénati Estate The Art Of Hamid Zenati, with the support of Goethe-Institut Tunis are thrilled to present The Birds Are Chirping Above the Tree, a captivating retrospective exhibition celebrating the audacious and visionary world of Hamid Zénati (1944–2022) at B7L9 Art Centre.
. This exhibition brings together a rare collection of the artist’s works in dialogue with key pieces from the Kamel Lazaar Foundation collection and renowned artists whose works resonate deeply with those of Zénati.
This exhibition invites you to dive into Zénati’s boundless universe — a world where vivid hues, intricate patterns, and rebellious surfaces come together to create an emotional journey through resistance, hope, and transformation.
A celebration of one of North Africa's most inventive and profound artistic voices.
Curated by Nadine Nour el Din with the insightful support of Anna Fenia Schneider
Exhibition manager: Sabah Ennaïfar
Poster designer: Farah Ghezal
Scenography : Béchir Riahi
Two olfactory works:
Nafs (Self, Spirit, Breath) and Joy, two scents inspired by Zenati’s life and work.
Nafs uses prompts from Zenati’s favourite amber oil during his days at the studio, surrounded by tobacco smoke.
Joy explores his work and the feelings it evokes, the synesthetic aspect of everything he does and the jubilant energy it brings.
Materials: Essential oils & aroma molecules in fractionated oil. Embedded in cotton in traditional ceramic tagines.
April 18th - July 20th 2025
Tunis, Tunisia
Images courtesy of Nadine Nour el Din and B7L9 Art Centre
Two olfactory works: Sarab and Hawa
Through olfaction, Dana El Masri invites us to rewrite orientalism. By playing with classical notes popular in French perfumery, and pervading them with scents of everyday life, the first scent aims to strip away the romanticism associated with a movement that is at the core colonial.
To bring a new perspective, the second scent expresses expansion. With the use of fresher notes, we’re guided towards a future away from fantasy, inspiring new possibilities, and honours forgotten histories. By challenging the olfactory codes of ‘oriental’ scent, Dana allows for a narrative closer to reality and away from colonial fantasy to prevail.
Materials: Essential oils & Aroma molecules in Argan oil. Embedded in cotton within specially carved walnut wood boxes.
March 5th-May 28th 2023
Denver, CO, United States
Interview with Dana.
Images courtesy of the Denver Art Museum
New York, United States
Year
Oct + Nov 2021 (reintroduced as Twelve Encounters in Los Angeles, Dec 2022)
One of Ten olfactory pieces. 10 scented works from around the world recreate real and imagined encounters.(Revisited at Institute for Art & Olfaction in 2022, Los Angeles, CA)
Images courtesy of Olfactory Art Keller
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One evening, Ahmosi was visited by the god Amun, who made himself recognizable by his godly aroma. Upon waking, Ahmosi recognized the God. As the story goes, "his love passed into her limbs, which the fragrance of the god flooded; all his odors were from Punt." The result of this olfactory union was the conception of the second female Pharaoh, Hatshepsut. (Memphis, Egypt)
Capturing the moment between the god Amun, disguised as Thutmose I (Thutmosis), and Ahmose (Ahmosi) as they unite to create Hatshepsut. A spiritual connection, a moment hidden from the light, only to create light, joined for peace. An ancient chamber flooded with scent, narcotic yet ascendant, invisible yet denotes divine presence.
Notes: blue lotus, chamomile, marjoram,
black cumin CO2, cinnamon bark CO2, and labdanum.
SELF DISCOVERY, SMELL PORTRAIT Scent Installation
‘I Am From Here/Je Suis d'içi’, curated by Rad Hourani Foundation
UNISEX GALLERY
Montreal, Canada
Year
2021
SPOIL -
In collaboration with Artist & Educator Dana Prieto.
Excerpt and Images courtesy of Dana Prieto.
Spoil is a sensuous multidisciplinary meditation on the unsettling material remnants of colonial extraction in the hands of Canadian corporations. This olfactory installation brings forward deep smells of volcanic earth from around "Bajo la Alumbrera" mine, blended with sharp notes that resemble the most harmful contaminants instilled by gold-mining operations: arsenic and cyanide. This work was a part of "Grounding" curated by Maya Wilson Sanchez from September to December 2020 at the Art Gallery of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Rich mineral soil, terracotta, geosmin, plant matter, gun powder, apricot pits, unripe peaches, bitter almonds and garlic flowers.
Guelph - Toronto - Montreal, Canada
Year
2020
SHIM EL YASMEEN - SMELL THE JASMINE شم الياسمين
Scent Installation exhibited at ‘Take Care of Yourself’, curated by Sundus Abdul Hadi.
Exploring the duality of light and dark in relation to mental health and self-care. Shim El Yasmeen is a moment of respite among the flowers.
Jasmine Grandiflorum, Jasmine Sambac, Stephanotis, Jasmine Absolute India 10%, Wood Panels, Cotton, Silk, Wires.
Images by Dana El Masri
Montreal, QC, Canada
Year
2017
