Project by Jiayi Dai
Smell is fleeting, yet deeply tied to memory. Rather than reproducing scent, this project works through its presence and material displacement. Odorless resin, salt, sea salt, and wood sticks operate as material proxies that interrupt direct olfactory recognition and redirect attention toward recollection rather than identification. The work translates olfactory memories associated with different cities into a visual and spatial system. Individual scents are rendered as diffuse color fields, allowing overlap, accumulation, and fading to register the collective weight of memory without fixed boundaries or singular authorship. Density and scale reflect the intensity and persistence of remembered experience rather than precise location.
