Ongoing olfactory archive
Places, memories and moments reconstructed through scent.

CAN A MOMENT BE PRESERVED?

A place is never only what we see.

It is the weather.

The temperature of the air.

Something cooking nearby.

Wet earth.

A particular perfume.

Fresh asphalt.

A flower opening.

Something unpleasant you stepped in.

Most of these things disappear without being recorded.

But sometimes the smell remains in memory.

Archive of Moments began as an attempt to work with these fragments.

Not only to describe a place, but to reconstruct a particular moment within it through scent.

An attempt to capture a moment that is ever changing.

ILMMYND

The first works were called Ilmmyndir.

An Ilmmynd begins with a place and a moment.

Where are you?

What is the weather like?

What are you doing?

Who is nearby?

What is happening just beyond you?

What can you smell?

Some details are beautiful.

Some are completely ordinary.

Some are things we would normally rather not smell at all.

But together, they make the moment what it is.

A kind of photograph made from smell.

PERCENTAGES OF EXPERIENCE

From the beginning, I imagined the formula not simply as percentages of fragrance ingredients, but as percentages of the experience itself.

A moment might contain wet earth, asphalt, flowers, food, someone’s perfume, good weather…

…and the smell of dog shit on a brand-new leather shoe.

Each could be given a different weight.

Not according to how much material was physically present, but according to how strongly it existed in the experience.

Percentages of experience.

The method later became part of other works, including Ilmheimur Kormáks & Skjaldar.

SMELLING SOMEONE ELSE’S MEMORY

I was also interested in what happens when the reconstructed scent is experienced by someone who wasn’t there.

Can you imagine the place?

Does the scent resemble what you imagined from the description?

Does it awaken a completely different memory of your own?

Can one person’s memory become the beginning of someone else’s?

WORKING BACKWARDS

Over time, the archive began to move further into memory.

Some Ilmmyndir begin with places I remember myself.

Others begin with the memories of my parents or other people.

I listen.

I look for the small details that remain.

A particular room.

Something being cooked.

Clothes.

Weather.

A person.

A smell that someone hasn’t encountered for decades.

Then I begin taking the memory apart.

And slowly, through scent, putting it together again.

Not exactly as it was.

A smell is never still, and neither is a memory.

But perhaps enough to take us back there for a moment.