Laurence Fanuel
Perfumer, Grasse

A perfumer's review of 16 years of perfuming shows for new generations of creators, to build together these new professions of immersive art.

We don't perfume the air like we perfume people

For the 16 years that I have been exploring the power of scents released from the bottle in order to study what they can bring to different sensory universes, it seemed to me that this moment in history was quite appropriate to take stock of what had been created, how, why, on the aesthetic, dramaturgical and technical lessons that we could draw from it, so that all those who launch out in their turn in these explorations can be enriched by what was done to go further and deeper in the questionings that this work does not fail to bring. This congress of October 2022 in Toulouse is, in this respect, an exceptional moment of sharing which reflects the humanistic approach of the two people who organized it. Thank you to Emilie and Anne-Charlotte for inviting nose explorers from all horizons. Because between the intimate and the collective, it is the human identity as much as our sensitive diversities that are under study!

The artistic research work of L'Atelier de Rosa Rose is possible thanks to the company Accords et Parfums, which accompanies many independent perfumers and which, in worthy heritage of the thought of Edmond Roudnitska - Christian Dior's leading independent perfumer in the '50s and '60s -, allows perfumers to explore all that this art still has to reveal. I thank them from the bottom of my heart!

Ask for the program!

Since 2008, I have designed the olfactory scenography for no less than 12 theater shows, concerts and dinners for starred chefs, most often in parallel with a career in the perfume industry, the two being mutually nourishing (Fig.1). During this same period, there were also approaches to contemporary art, with the realization of 11 multisensory exhibitions, odorizations of museums, places of Art and History (Fig.2). Even if there are common points between the two worlds, we will concentrate, in this article, on the odorization of shows, the vision of the perfumer entering the contemporary art will be, as for it, the object of a separate sharing of reflexion.

> complete article in French : here