An ongoing olfactory archive of Icelandic flora
2017–

WHAT DOES A PLACE SMELL OF?

In 2017, I began the research that became Ilmbanki íslenskra jurta together with Elín Hrund Þorgeirsdóttir and Jóhannes Bjarni Eðvarðsson. Together we gathered material from the Icelandic landscape, distilled plants and began building the archive.

The idea was simple.

To collect the scents of Icelandic flora.

I began gathering plants and other materials from the Icelandic landscape and finding ways to capture their smell.

Some I distilled.

Some I extracted.

Some required another method entirely.

Slowly, the collection grew.

Today the archive contains more than 300 scents gathered and preserved from the Icelandic landscape.

But somewhere along the way, I realised I wasn’t only collecting plants.

I was collecting a place through smell.

TAKING THINGS APART

A plant does not have one smell.

Neither does a forest.

Or a field.

Or a place.

Each is made up of many things, appearing together for a moment.

A leaf.
Wet bark.
Flowers.
Soil.
Resin.
Rain.

I began to think of each scent as a fragment.

Something that could be taken from the landscape, studied, preserved and perhaps one day brought together with other fragments.

A way of taking a place apart through smell.

INSIDE THE PLANT

I also became curious about what I couldn’t smell or see.

I began having some of the essential oils chemically analysed.

The analyses allowed me to look inside the scents in another way, revealing the volatile compounds present in different plants and the very different proportions in which they occur.

The smell I experienced as one thing could be taken apart again.

This time, into chemistry.

THE INVISIBLE PART OF A LANDSCAPE

THE ARCHIVE OPENS

In 2020, Ilmbanki íslenskra jurta opened to the public during DesignMarch in Álafosskvos, Mosfellsbær.

The exhibition was developed and created together with Elín Hrund Þorgeirsdóttir.

The archive formed the heart of the exhibition.

Around it were different ways of experiencing scent: Forest Shower, ceramic Forest Lungs by Guðný Hafsteinsdóttir, and early Ilmmyndir, olfactory reconstructions of places and memories.

For the first time, these different parts of the work existed together in one space.

Plants could be smelled individually.

A forest could be stepped into.

A memory could be reconstructed through scent.

The archive was beginning to become something more than a collection.

The exhibition was one moment in the life of Ilmbanki.

The collecting continued.

ILMBANKI ÍSLENSKRA JURTA, 2020

DesignMarch, Álafosskvos, Mosfellsbær

Created by Sonja Bent and Elín Hrund Þorgeirsdóttir
Exhibition installation: Jóhannes Bjarni Eðvarðsson and Þórey Björk Halldórsdóttir
Graphic design: Baldur Björnsson
Ceramic Forest Lungs: Guðný Hafsteinsdóttir
Photography: Jonathan Devaney and Hildur Margrétardóttir

A LIVING ARCHIVE

Ilmbanki is not a finished collection.

Plants change.

Seasons change.

Weather changes.

The same plant can smell different depending on where and when it grows.

There will always be something else to collect.

Something else to notice.

Something I missed the first time.

The archive continues.

FROM ARCHIVE TO EXPERIENCE

Over time, the archive began to lead me somewhere else.

What if the individual scents could be brought together again?

Could they reconstruct the atmosphere of a forest?

A place?

A moment?

These questions became the beginning of works such as Forest Shower and Ilmmyndir, and continue through my work today.

The archive became a way of taking the world apart, so I could begin putting it back together through scent.