The eye (and the nose) has to travel – ‘A World Tour Through Scent’ Exhibition

These days, we are all wanderlust, no matter it’s just a small adventure at the countryside park nearby your house, or, catching a plane to St. Petersburg to experience the winter-white Christmas at night with the magical street lights and snow, a little trip makes us expand our knowledge and horizon about other culture except our own. I remember, the very first time I bought a copy of coffee table book, titled ‘Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel’ by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Lally Weymouth, Judith Thurman & Judith Clark, I was utterly mesmerized by the images inside, and of course, admired the stylish odyssey about this legendary fashion editor who travelled around the world, dressing up super models and work with different acclaimed photographers, in order to capture the most appealing and stylish photos, in the fashionable publication that she’s worked for. In fact, besides our eyes, every part of our body travels too, that’s the sensation that stimulates our interest to experience something different, or eccentric, around us, and for this time, I would like to introduce an exhibition which involves our senses to appreciate beautiful works, not just visually, but our nose as well, to travel around the world.

It was a coincident actually that I read about a Facebook post by Nez magazine, one of the most sought-after French perfume publication focus about the news and story of the perfume industry in France / Europe and even around the world, which they collaborate with one of the global fragrance supplier - Symrise, and Tendance Floue, a French studio on shooting documentaries and photos for professional institutions, they come together and organized a very interesting and innovative exhibition, which offers a sensational experience of travelling through fragrance, photography, and story of perfumers from around the world. The exhibition titled ‘A World Tour Through Scent’, which commences in Paris with the second stop in the pearl of the Orient – Hong Kong! My heart was pounding and felt so excited about this amazing news! Maybe it reminds me of the copy of Nez which I almost want to buy when I was visiting Le Grand Musée du Parfum in Paris back in last year, and, the exclusive launch of the new fragrance: ‘CHÁN’ by our very own Hong Kong designer Mr. Alan Chan, which designed with the legendary French Perfumer, Mr. Maurice Roucel, produced by Symrise; I was completely thrilled about this news, having an Hongkonger designer collaborated with a French perfumer to create a fragrance which is very rare and encouraging, and yes, it did resonate with my fragrance creation journey as well with my French perfumer, therefore, I promised myself that I need to pay a visit to this exhibition, to appreciate the work that put together by all these remarkable artists and professionals.

Although the weather was not very good during that weekend of exhibition, but that didn’t diminish my desire, the exhibition is truly impressive and informative as expected; the entire preparation literally takes several months, with 13 Symrise perfumers travelled to 11 destinations around the world, working alongside with a journalist and a photographer from Oaxaca to the Amazon to Holzminden, then from Shanghai to Singapore, and Seville to Paris, then Maudrai to Dubai; these journeys inspired 12 exclusive scents as well as 11 photographic carte blanche works questioning the representation of smells and olfactory concepts, an ambitious and innovative project that invites the audience to rethink the creative processes specific to these disciplines, opening up as many new perspectives for photography, perfume and reporting, as well as their co-relations in between each other on experiencing the joy as a wanderlist, as an artist, or even as a human being, to feel the beauty around us with different senses from our body.

While the exhibition in Hong Kong is just over, that doesn’t mark the end of this project, for those who are interested to witness this innovative experience and work with both visual and olfactory senses, feel free to check out the next exhibiting destination! Perhaps it could possibly give you some inspiration of what fragrance you should bring along to your next travel destination. So dear gentlemen, let’s travel with your eyes and nose!

Image courtesy of Symrise Singapore

http://www.symrise.com/

https://www.nez-larevue.fr/