Lauryn’s artistic practice is both experimental and interdisciplinary. Since 2005, she has been mainly interested in tackling the issue of the Western cultural dominance of visual aesthetics and epistemology by exploring primarily non-visual modalities and perception. Inspired by narratives of empowerment and resistance, she has previously examined the influence of the physical and socio-cultural dynamics of space on body perception through site-specific interventions (e.g. Occupation Sonore, 2007) and tactile-sound installations (e.g. Internal Earthquake, 2014).
Lauryn initiated the nomadic meeting spaces Think Tank (2007-8) and the Think & Action Tank (2014-15) to foster informal discussions on diverse creative research processes and presentation formats. Since 2016, she has curated the Sensory Culture Club reading group, which tackles aspects concerning the role of society and culture of the historically repressed sense of smell, touch and taste. In 2018-19, she co-supervised a Master of Science thesis project on consumer science of body odour in food at Wageningen University (NL).
Since 2016, Lauryn has been investigating the politics of body scent by unveiling feelings and assumptions that people have pertaining to experiences of others’ smell and body odour. Lauryn creates performance-based experiments combined with interdisciplinary surveys. From a feminist perspective, she critically draws from laboratory practices of human olfactory (smell) perception in psychology and neuroscience. In this line of work, she recently presented her projects Love Sweat Love (2016), Eat Me (2018), and Smell Feel Match (2019). In addition, she showed the first results of her research into people’s felt perception towards others’ body scents at the interdisciplinary Human Olfaction Conference (2017).
During the bangaloREsidency, Lauryn will collaborate with the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology. There, she will begin to explore ideas related to processes of “othering” by investigating people’s perceptions about body scents. As a starting point, she will examine “othering” as a form of social exclusion based on the premise that a person or group is perceived as "different", and therefore not considered as part of one's own social group. Through research and discussions on postcolonial narratives of “othering” with Indians and the Indian diaspora, Lauryn will design artistic experiments, in which participants can investigate their own olfactory judgment of others’ body scents. Most importantly, she seeks to engage in an open-minded discussion on the perception of body scent, which she intends to maintain past the residency period.
Final Report
I was overcome with a sudden influx of overwhelming emotions when I landed in Bangalore. When planning my trip, I had been looking forward to exploring the city. In particular, I was excited to discover the smells of the city’s urban spaces, the local foods, and people. I had my first memorable olfactory (smell) impression at the airport, where the Goethe-Institut welcomed us with jasmine flower garlands. I was mesmerized by the jasmine’s light yet intense floral smell.
I began my residency project after an intense first week of being ill. Initially, I had intended to explore ideas related to processes of “othering” by investigating people’s feelings, potential assumptions and judgements about others’ body scents. The term body scents is what I use to refer to the entire spectrum of human smells, as they occur in everyday life. Body scents can be both solely natural body odours, as well as any modification to them through addition of products such as shower gel, aftershave, essential oils or the like. Overall, all activities (such as working, exercising, food, etc.) and the spaces we inhabit construct the mixtures of scents and aromas that make up our body scents. Moreover, I use the term “othering” as a word to describe a form of social exclusion based on the premise that a person or group is perceived as "different", and therefore is not considered as part of the broader social group.
Since I was completely new to India’s cultural landscape, it seemed necessary to first gain an understanding of how people perceived and constructed their world through smell. To begin with, I decided to search for contemporary academic texts on the cultural history of smell. I had multiple seminal conversations with Yashas Shetty, as well as with Suresh Jayaram. To my surprise, I only found one book written in English — “Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture” (McHugh 2012) — which provided cultural insights into smell in pre-modern South Asia that were based on Sanskrit texts. The book showed comparisons made between Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious practices in relation to smell. One particularly interesting insight that I gained was that urine, dead bodies and human excrements, as well as sick people had been perceived as foul smelling in pre-modern India.
The more I started to learn about smell in Indian culture, the more eager I became to look into academic writing on the social perception of human body scents in India in the fields of the social sciences, psychology and neuroscience. During my research, I discovered one article — “Theorising Sensory Cultures in Asia: Sociohistorical Perspectives” (Low 2019) — which examined the role of the senses through Asia’s historical context. One thing of note was that the article explained how “Imperialist attitudes governing sensory conduct, property and civility in [India] meant that local sensory behaviours were interpreted as transgressive and thereby pathological” (Low 2019, p. 629). Besides this article, I found the amount of literature in the English language on my chosen topic to be sparse. I was surprised that I had not yet been able to find any contemporary academic texts that documented how people perceived each other through their body scents.
At the beginning of my residency, I had planned to explore the social perception of people’s body scents by creating a new version of my olfactory performance-experiment titled “Eat Me” (2018). I had designed “Eat Me” to ask participants to imagine a world in which experiencing others by tasting and smelling (retronasal smell) them would be the norm. Originally, I had created “Eat Me” by conducting interviews at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. During these interviews, I had asked people if they could imagine eating body scents, and if so, what texture, taste and colour they would ascribe to them. Based on people’s replies, I designed four snacks and one beverage, which I served at a public presentation.
From my research, it seemed to me that a women’s neck is the most suitable and respectful body part to focus my exploration of the social perception of women’s body scents in Bangalore because it can be both partially exposed to the world, as well as covered up by clothes. The variety of scents on a women’s neck might be perceived by others during particular types of exchanges, for instance by hugging. However, these smells can also be experienced in the public domain, for example, when traveling on a crowded bus. Although the neck is considered an intimate space, the scents of the area do not seem to be as stigmatised as the other intimate areas of the body, such as the scents of a women’s underarm. Overall, it is my intention to have my work raise an awareness about the social perception of women’s body scents by trying to avoid reinforcing existing stigmas on the way women smell.
A big thank you to the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Moira Heuer, Charlotte Rauth, Marie Knop, Meena Vari and Yashas ShettY from the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Prof. Shannon Olsson and Srinivas Rao from the NICE Lab at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Prof. Sobin George from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, 1 Shanthi Road, Blank Noise, Sandbox Collective, The Courtyard, and all the women in Bangalore with whom I had discussions.
Bibliography
McHugh, J 2012, Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture, Oxford University Press, New York.
Low, KEY 2019, ‘Theorising Sensory Cultures in Asia: Sociohistorical Perspectives’, Asian Studies Review, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 618-636, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2019.1664985
