“Art must serve a cause; not a military cause, or political, but a social cause.”
– Blek le Rat
Since the very beginning of the Asphalt Rainbow project, I have been quite adamant that the purpose of this particular experiment is not to simply add a fragrance component to a street art piece. That’s not to say that incorporating an olfactive element into existing street art wouldn’t produce interesting results, because it could. However, in that scenario, it also would maintain central focus on the outside/visual component of the work (meaning that the goal of the scent would be mostly to help deepen emotional connections to the street art you are viewing). With Asphalt Rainbow, I instead wanted to keep emphasis on fragrance and the sense of smell, to use scent as the main point of reference rather than as an accessory; here the perfume is the street art piece.
To get a better sense of how exactly these two worlds are being brought together, start off with the project basics found inside the Asphalt Rainbow fragrance brief. It includes more on the backstory, links to bios from the team, and most importantly, what the fragrance smells like. I also have been sharing more information about which aspects of street art helped inspired the fragrance (The #Roseshards Story), and how particular street art techniques have been applied in its construction (Asphalt Rainbow Street Art Technique Series). And now, on to the “whys”…
Street Art, Scent, and ‘Unheard’ Voices
Some of the most compelling street art seems to stem from a connection to this idea of “the forgotten.” Forgotten spaces, forgotten people, forgotten histories… Find a community where people feel misrepresented, devalued, or just flat out ignored, and there’s probably a good chance taggers and bombers aren’t too far behind.
As I am now over two and a half years into the Asphalt Rainbow project and this immersion into street art culture, it has been my experience that the deeper I dig into the motivational drive of these artists, the more socially aware I become of my city’s surroundings, and because of that, the very important social purpose I believe these works of art serve. I am in awe of the emotional power of this social awareness component of street art, by how these simple acts of defiance can potentially grow so large as to even inspire an entire nation to change (i.e. the “Free Mandela” graffiti in South Africa, Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” posters, the tags on the Berlin Wall…).
In other words, there’s a good reason why there was such a proliferation of graffiti art in places like NYC during the 1980’s, especially in neighborhoods like the Bronx, Brooklyn, and on the subways. There is indeed method to what can sometimes appear to be nothing but madness. It was in exploring the rationales behind art like that found on the walls of those train cars I found myself declaring fragrance in need of full-on street art kick in the pants.
The Untapped Beauty of Fragrance
Let’s start with one inarguable fact: outside of the rare exception within certain isolated indigenous groups, the sense of smell is treated as the least valuable of the human senses. There really isn’t much love shown to the nose, especially within the modernized Western World. Truthfully, as we continue to pursue an ultra-sanitized world, we seem to be developing an even further diminished appreciation for our sense of smell.
Whereas during the beginnings of the Industrial Age we seemed to be ever-expanding the possibilities of fragrance through such things as the introduction of new molecules and perfume types, or increasing fragrance use thanks to improved production methods and the advent of department stores… the average person today seems to want to run away from not towards fragrance, looking to ban “offending” materials, calling for limited usage, and systematically stigmatizing the things that made the art of perfumery so beautiful to begin with.
Just compare how we DO educate kids about their other senses (vision, hearing, taste, and even touch) versus how we DO NOT educate them about their sense of smell outside perhaps a few safety basics (“if you smell smoke…”) and generally accepted social practices (things like: do not break wind in public, check your breathe…). That’s a far cry from the hours (if not years) spent teaching color relationships or music appreciation, not to mention time dedicated to other sensorial teaching methods [i.e. using the sense of touch to help improve early reading comprehension skills (“this word is soft and soft feels like…”)].
Yes, amongst our senses, smell is the underappreciated… the unheard… “the forgotten.” To me, this is what makes fragrance such a powerful source of untapped beauty. I truly believe that we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of olfaction’s potential, and I look to be there as we enter into this Brave New Perfumed World. My nose is activated and with Asphalt Rainbow, I am officially writing my name on the wall.
So now I come back to this world of street art looking for lessons to be learned, for ways to unlock olfaction’s similar emotional arms and use them to reach back into this odor-phobic world. I do it in support of the wonderfully weird and new, the avant garde and the yet to be discovered, the unapologetically aromatic. I do it to continue challenging the tired gender clichés we like to perpetuate via scent and scent marketing. Most importantly, I do it to once again inspire people to think about their noses.
Order Asphalt Rainbow by visiting our online shop
Browse through the pieces of Charenton Macerations’ #Roseshards Story
Learn about a few useful Street Art Techniques for Olfaction
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