olfactory inkblot_3
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Olfactory Inkblot_3: Olfactory Meditation
Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art
Staten Island’s Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden
Saturday, January 8, 2011
On Saturday, January 8th, 2011 Gayil Nalls led the first Olfactory Inkblot_3, an olfactory meditation on the World Olfactory Social Sculpture World Sensorium.
The Olfactory Meditation took place in the Main Hall (Building C), of Staten Island’s historic Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden. This building was the first to be erected at Snug Harbor in 1831, and is one of several Greek Revival spaces on the grounds. For the meditation, participants gathered in the rotunda under its domed ceiling, which boasts an exquisitely painted program allegory of marine and celestial imagery, accentuated by stained glass windows and an illuminated sunray.
The Olfactory Inkblot_3: Olfactory Meditation on Nalls’ World Sensorium is the third work in her series exploring olfactory perception and the psychophysical response to natural smells. Taking its name from the Rorschach inkblot tests, first used in the early 1920s for psychoanalytic purposes, the olfactory inkblot series draws attention to one's unique response to scent perception and memory. Inkblot_1 is an olfactory multiple aromatic soy candle released in 2009, and Inkblot_2 is an aromatic experiential edible that made its debut in March 2010 at Scents & Medical Sensibilities at the Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts Gallery in Washington, D.C.
World Sensorium Meditation
Gayil Nalls’ World Sensorium, a world olfactory social sculpture and single scent, comprises culturally associative aromatic phytogenic materials naturally experienced in the olfactory domain. The study for the artwork’s creation surveyed the officials of 230 countries to identify dominant natural aromas retained through odor memory by a majority of people of each country. The findings established that there are highly associative natural scents that work as olfactory imprints and memory triggers for large numbers of people of cultures in every region of the world. World Sensorium has been experienced in special events, including part of Times Square 2000, when its microencapsulated paperworks were released into the sea of 2 million people at midnight.
During the meditation, the public is invited to engage with the rare experience of World Sensorium, marking humankind's co-evolution with the natural world.
The Olfactory Meditation focuses on how the brain and the natural environment are one ecosystem. This practice serves to stimulate and re-awaken one's perception of their sense of smell by focusing their attention on the present moment, wherein one can fully experience the botanical intelligence present in nature’s holistic system through olfaction’s many dimensions. Ultimately a formless sculpture, World Sensorium is shaped by the people who embody it in a state of relaxed, focused attention. As an on-going work, the social sculpture grows as it continues to be shared in international public events.
If you are interested in participating in a future Olfactory Inkblot_3: Olfactory Meditation, please join our mailing list for updates on upcoming events. http://www.gayilnalls.com/contact.html
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