Perfume 1883, collaboration with Pamela van Rijswijk.
Perfume, boxed, 200 x 150 mm canvas
Schiedam has a rich Jenever (Dutch Gin) history. The 19th Century was Schiedam’s Golden Age, when the Gin industry flourished. The whole city was covered with black root, coal-fired production of yeasts, glass factories, alcoholism, open sewers and cholera epidemics, alcoholism and diseased infested people. This gave the city its nickname ‘Black Nazareth’.
This work questions the relationship of smell towards photography. In a classical way, is photography a way to capture the here and now, which makes photography untouchable. It is a sense which plays with our observability. This is the same for the sense ‘ smell’. It is directly connected to our cognitive brain. Which means that when we smell a certain odour, our brain gets triggered to relive the memory attached to it. No other sense is thus able to revive a memory as the smell is. This is the starting point of this work. Recalling a moment in history we weren’t a part of, but by providing information and smell your brain will be able to put 1+1 together.
We captured this smell inside a bottled perfumed. This perfume is a part of the complete work which concludes; 20 x 15 cm framed canvas, 15 x 15 box filled with 20ml of the perfume, a 1ml tester and a 21 paged book which describes our adventure, detailed product information and process photos.
Special thanks to: Jorg Hempius, de scentman
Rob van Klaarwater, Jeneverie 't Spul
Leo Fontijnen, Distillery Notaris
