Posted by Robin on Leave a Comment
Its weapon is not a steel blade, though, but something far subtler: scent. Twist its dome to reveal pierced panels and it emits one of three “functional smells”: Attraction, Distraction or Attention. Today, it’s giving off Attraction, which smells like a far-off, futuristic flower.
— Smell artist Sissel Tolaas designs a ring with German jeweller Georg Hornemann. Read more at Meet ‘nasalnaut’ Sissel Tolaas at Financial Times.
Posted by Robin on 4 Comments
Sissel Tolaas’s work is more subtle but it’s one of the most innovative – and surprising – pieces in the whole show. It’s a series of small, white, abstract sculptures equally spaced across four walls. These sculptures hide secrets. Each is imbued with scent, which triggers a memory or a feeling or, sometimes, an acute physical reaction.
— Scent artist Sissel Tolaas collected smells from Melbourne, and is now exhibiting them at the NGV Triennial, which runs until April 15 at the National Gallery of Victoria. Read more at Smelling Art with Sissel Tolaas at Broadsheet Melbourne, or find out more about the Triennial here.
Posted by Robin on Leave a Comment
For her latest project, commissioned by the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum for the fifth installment of its Design Triennial, she tackled the scent of Central Park. Tolaas has done location-focused works in the past, capturing the scents of places such as Istanbul and Greenland, and with Manhattan’s most famous park in the Cooper Hewitt’s backyard, it made sense to develop a work based on that area.
But as the theme of this year’s Triennial is “Beauty,” Tolaas sought to play against what she calls “the classic clichés” of the word. When someone tries to imagine a “beautiful smell,” he or she might imagine perfume, fragrant food or some other pleasing scent. But for this show, Tolaas says, “I wanted to show the other side, and look at the beauty of decay.”
— Scent artist Sissel Tolaas has a touch-and-smell wall at the Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial, open now through August 21. Read more at Can Smell Be a Work of Art? at Smithsonian Magazine.
Posted by Robin on Leave a Comment
It's no surprise that sometimes cheese odours and body odours are similar. But when we started working together we were surprised by how not only do cheese and smelly body parts like feet share similar odour molecules but also have similar microbial populations.
— Just in case you were wondering what scent artist Sissel Tolaas has been up to lately, she's been making cheese from bacteria taken from the persons of artist Olafur Eliasson, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and chef Michael Pollan. Read more, if you can stomach it, at Olafur Eliasson's tears used to make human cheese at De Zeen. You might also remember that she did the same thing with David Beckham's sneakers.
Posted by Robin on Leave a Comment
Hidden architecture and its possibilities are explored further by Sissel Tolaas’ olfactory map of Tokyo and her walls painted in emulsion containing microencapsulated scents taken from the sweat of different men. The room of “difficult smells,” was alive with visitors and yells of “kusai!” (“stinks!”).
— Scent artist Sissel Tolaas is participating in BUNNY SMASH: design to touch the world at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. The exhibit runs through 19 January. Read more at Smashing ideas on future design and technology at The Japan Times.