Every hero must have two crucial plot devices to shape their extraordinary journey: A compelling origin story and a worthy adversary/ foil.
In an interview with Bombay-based Soup Magazine, appearing next week, I recount the friction-point that sparked my unique approach to perfumery.
Can you trace your journey to researching scents as signifiers of culture? How did you arrive at establishing your art and olfactory practice under Litrahb Perfumery?
This is a great question to start with […]. Some years back I attended a pop-up event in Pune where a new Indian brand was showcasing their perfumes. The man waved a bottle at me: “I’ve made masala chai perfume, come try it.” Masala chai prompts expectations of cardamom, cinnamon and a subtle sharpness of clove and ginger. Instead I got what I can only describe as “metallic-rancid lemongrass”. I scoffed: If I had just half this man’s resources, I would take a risk. I would take an element familiar to every South Asian and present it in an unexpected form: I would make Green Chutney perfume! - I then promptly forgot about this and moved on. I did not think about this encounter until a year later.
In 2017, I began reading everything about the application of scent to enhance flavour-experiences that brought me back to how I had so cockily thought up a genius idea for a uniquely South Asian perfume. Now was the time to test it.
[…]As a critic I was already well trained to analyse what makes a work of art bad, good or extraordinary. I am in the business of extraordinary. I established Litrahb Perfumery in 2018 as a moniker under which I could expand my intellectual and artistic practice. There was new ground to stake and I was bound to leave stale masala cliches in the dust.
My practice sparks from a place of extreme irritation at being constantly surrounded by mediocrity. “I can do this better in two minutes” is an oft retort that drove me to build a sprawling multisensory open-access project in the first place. Over a decade, I have thought plenty about how to build a better museum/ museum experience and a more delightful gift shop, a better exhibition and a meaningful exhibition catalogue and also find a sensitive and respectful way to communicate with audiences. I also wanted to work with better people who often do not get the visibility and opportunity they deserve. It is possible for various forms of material and intellectual knowledge to be curated and presented in the most inventive of formats. Evidence of this lies in how emphatically Bagh-e Hind manifests through a very seize-the-means ethos that repossesses, decentralises and redistributes knowledge otherwise hoarded by institutions, through conceptual and practical methodologies. Additional to that, our (virtual) Opening Night last year, brought a sparkling calibre of speakers and guests together in one room, far surpassing most museum events in extravagance in the phygital age (they’re still stuck with the one dimensional zoom-lecture model).
The kernel of my (earned) arrogance however, harbours the sincere intention to deliver to the public the realisation that in this world of all packaging and no substance, we deserve better.
The latest issue of American Historical Review is out and in it is a generous acknowledgement from the good folks at Odeuropa who contextualised my sensorial approach to art history within the larger rubric of recent smell-research methodologies to surface in the last three decades, in their creatively titled research paper, “Whiffstory: Using Multidisciplinary Methods to Represent the Olfactory Past”.
This Bubble-girl went out:
I avoid venturing too far form my apartment. The sensory overload offered by this city is too harsh for me to bear — the atmosphere, smell and visual noise turns me into an overwhelmed person who can’t wait to rush home, take several allergy pills and shut down for days.
Last month I had to go to the old part of Pune to search for ceramic “eyes” for an overseas based diaspora friend who uses this material as a means of interrogation in her art practice. Not to be confused with the “Evil eye” that thwarts envious glances, these disturbingly judgemental eyes are actually sacred objects, meant to be affixed on deities in order to render them lifelike. Supernaturally equipped with a glare that stalks you well into the afterlife, these are apparently sold only in pairs, but I persuaded the shopkeeper to sell me the odd, flawed ones in various sizes, the largest (pictured top left) is as big as my forehead. I am still wondering where to source them from in wholesale because each of these pieces were unreasonably expensive. Write to me if you have any ideas!
Usually on such trips, I wander into random streets and shops because something or the other catches my eye. I am still very much a foreigner here and there is plenty to explore. The halwai shops are particularly enticing. I always walk into these shops very confident that none of the sweet and savoury treats on display can entice me. I am always wrong.
There is a very good reason to explore flavour though. Somewhere in my head is an idea not quite fully formed for a lecture-performance where I can methodically take my guests through my seventeenth century “Garden” full of interventions of flowers, tastes, and smells. I already do this through virtual curatorial tours of Bagh-e Hind - which I still offer but by invitation only.
I am aware my project is ultimately just* a website. Unlike in a physical museum space where people can engage with the exhibits on their own terms, here, the complexities of synesthesia tucked between the exhibition’s paintings, poetry, dialogue and scent-translations remain invisible despite our best efforts to pack enough cues and prompts in our captions and essays. The most enjoyable way to access these tastes is by letting me ramble and jump between chapters and stories for an hour or two.
As with everything I do, I take an approach that is inch-wide but mile deep to give my audience the tools with which to read our exhibition for themselves— I guide my guests on what to look for and where the more layered and subversive aspects of the show are located and why certain curatorial choices were made. I also love pointing out what 3gm of jasmine sambac CO2 extract produced from 15 kilos of flowers looks like in one of the galleries and what $135 worth of ambergris looks like on a plate in another section of the show.
Origin of my epic curatorial tours: Some years back I was part of a press group being taken through antiquities in a museum in Abu Dhabi. I could not help but notice that the security and custodian staff from the entrance to the basement levels were all South Asian; the service staff in the shop and restaurants on a level up, were Filipino, the objects in the museum were from South Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, and the curator in charge was European.
These obvious power dynamics aside, the curator did little more than lead us from section to section, casually pointing to a number of objects that included Buddhist sculptures “from Asia” without bothering to get into the nuances that distinguished one Cambodian idol from another one from Nepal and why all “Asian” artefacts were lumped together in one room. Answers to any questions about the objects and their provenance were not forthcoming either. I left finding the whole experience disrespectful on several fronts. We deserve better.
Bagh is a restorative effort outside of such prestigious but constrained forums that I circumvent to communicate directly with the public, to build pathos that ultimately unlocks new historical readings and the boundless possibilities entailed. As I reverse the occidental gaze, I also set up a space for transparency and equity between myself and the viewer. While my audience may bring their own responses to the project, I certainly keep myself open for scrutiny.
Tangentially:
“…most museums that make broad statements about sustainability, social justice, or diversity fall far short in action with an enormous asset, their endowment. Unless you hear otherwise, it is a safe bet that their endowments are invested in fossil fuels, big pharma, and the like.”
It’s Time for US Museums to Divest From Immoral Industries: What would it look like if museums turned their billions toward positive good instead of questionable investments simply for profit? - by Tom Finkelpearl & Pablo Helguera for Hyperallergic
Incense of the Season: Nutmeg
A mellow composition of nutmeg with myrrh and ginger, this one’s extraordinarily pleasing in the monsoon season. Pairs well with Smoked Patchouli (2018) perfume.