WORK
Selected olfactory works, archives and experiences.
I work with scent as a way of exploring place, memory and perception.
Some works begin with a landscape.
Others with a plant, a memory, a person, or something that has disappeared.
I gather, smell, distill and extract.
I take things apart.
And slowly, through scent, put them together again.
ILMBANKI ÍSLENSKRA JURTA
2017–
An ongoing olfactory archive of Icelandic flora.
More than 300 scents gathered, extracted, distilled and preserved from the Icelandic landscape.
What began as an attempt to collect the scents of individual plants gradually became a way of taking a landscape apart through smell.
The invisible part of a landscape.
FOREST SHOWER
2019–
Olfactory installation.
What makes a forest smell like a forest?
Forest Shower grew out of my research into Icelandic flora and a small play on the idea of Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing.
There is no bath.
I found that slightly funny.
So I made a shower.
Scent carried in water is transformed into a fine, cool mist that you step into with the whole body.
KORMÁKUR & SKJÖLDUR
2021
Olfactory identity.
An early commissioned scent project created for Icelandic menswear brand Kormákur & Skjöldur.
The scent developed across perfume, beard oil and room fragrance, creating an olfactory world around the brand.
KORMÁKUR & SKJÖLDUR →
HVAMMSVÍK
2022–
An olfactory identity of place.
Hvammsvík began with the landscape surrounding the baths.
Ocean. Wet rock. Seaweed. Lyme grass. Moss. Crowberry.
Rather than creating a fragrance simply inspired by Icelandic nature, I wanted to understand the smell of this particular place.
What makes Hvammsvík smell like Hvammsvík?
The resulting scent became part of the experience of the baths and later expanded into products used on the body.
A landscape translated into scent.
HVAMMSVÍK →
RJÓÐUR
2024–
An olfactory portrait of Laugarás.
Rjóður began in the landscape surrounding Laugarás.
I walked.
I gathered.
I smelled.
I distilled.
Rather than looking for a fragrance to represent the place, I followed what was already there.
Slowly, something that could not be seen began to take form.
An olfactory portrait of Laugarás.
RJÓÐUR →
ILMMYNDIR ARCHIVE OF MOMENTS
Ongoing
Places and moments reconstructed through scent.
Some places disappear.
Some moments survive only in memory.
I work from places, objects, conversations and people’s memories, taking an experience apart into fragments and slowly putting it together again through scent.
A bus station in Reykjavík in 1981.
A childhood home.
An evening in the countryside.
Places that still exist.
Places that have changed.
Places that are gone.
An attempt to capture a moment that is ever changing.
ARCHIVE OF MOMENTS →
SELECTED COMMISSIONS
Alongside my independent practice, I create olfactory works and identities for places, exhibitions, brands and cultural projects.
Selected projects and collaborations include:
Icelandair
Signature scent
PLAY
An olfactory interpretation of boarding a new aircraft
Himbrimi Gin
A perfume developed from taste
Haltia Finnish Nature Centre
Forest Shower
Skyrland
Icelandic summer scent experience
Kormákur & Skjöldur
Perfume, beard oil and room fragrance
THOMSEN
Huile de parfum
SONJA BENT
Olfactory Artist
Reykjavík, Iceland
ABOUT →
CONTACT →