“Parfums d’Orient”, a festival of scents from elsewhere

2023-10-08 13:15:13

This fall, at the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) in Paris, perfumes lead us by the tip of our noses. As soon as you enter, you can smell pretty ceramic moucharabiehs to discover the raw materials used in the Orient since ancient times. Here, the powerful aromas of musk, considered in the Koran as the smell of paradise and yet whose origin is hardly poetic: it comes from the glands of a Himalayan chevrotain! Rest assured: no animals were mistreated for the exhibition, the aroma now comes from synthetic molecules.

Next to it, a clay mouth exhales tears of frankincense, this precious resin that camel caravans transported across the Arabian Peninsula as early as the 1st millennium BC. Further on, immersed in semi-darkness, three interactive installations are just waiting for our breath to trigger a whirlwind of petals and diffuse the delicate scent of orange blossoms, roses or saffron. The visitor’s journey is thus punctuated with fragrant surprises which keep their curiosity alive until the exit.

A daring olfactory journey

This sensory approach does not lack audacity. Many museums have already broken their noses over “fragrant” exhibitions. “It’s infinitely complex, because everyone perceives odors at a different threshold. Finding the right dosage is a matter of skill”assures Mathilde Castel, doctor in museology and member of the scientific council of the “Parfums d’Orient” exhibition.

At the Arab World Institute, a trompe-l’oeil made of spices was created in situ for the “Perfumes of the Orient” exhibition. / Claire Jaillard for La Croix L’Hebdo

The disappointment of institutions is often commensurate with the cost of investments, as during the retrospective devoted to Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun at the Grand Palais in 2013, whose front door gave off a rose scent. “Visitors first complained that they didn’t smell anything and then, after adjusting, that the smell was too strong! »remembers Mathilde Castel.

Ten years later, technical devices have improved. From the conception of the exhibition, the two curators Agnès Carayon and Hanna Boghanim surrounded themselves with talented professionals: the perfumer Christopher Sheldrake, a collaborator for thirty years of Serge Lutens, and the young studio Magique, specialized in technical implementation artistic projects related to smell. Their mission: to accompany scientific discourse in an eloquent and fragrant manner while avoiding the “Sephora effect”, this “overdose of scents” which sometimes sickens perfumery customers.

A scenography to illustrate pestilences, within the “Parfums d’Orient” exhibition at the Institute of the Arab World, until March 17, 2024. / Claire Jaillard for La Croix L’Hebdo

On the model of the City of wine in Bordeaux and its “buffet of the five senses”, the Magique teams have focused on installations which help to limit the diffusion of odors. “Concretely, we pass the air through beads of solid perfume. This prevents the spread of micro-droplets which saturate the space and allows each odor to be smelled distinctly”explains Marie Vialle, designer at Magique.

Meticulous maintenance work is planned throughout the duration of the exhibition, in particular to replace the cartridges of the diffusers hidden in the picture rails and the fragrant ceramics which will stale over the days.

The art of oriental perfumery

For Christopher Sheldrake, this collaboration with a museum is a first and a major challenge, both in form and substance. “The cradle of oriental perfumery is located around “happy Arabia”, as Strabo wrote, a vast territory which extends from the Mediterranean Basin to Ethiopia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran . How to find the common points of all these cultures, tastes and stories? »asked the perfumer.

He himself has long drawn on the rich oriental imagination to shape heady perfumes with evocative names: “Ambre sultan”, “Moorish leather”, “Turkish smokehouse”, “Saracens”…

For the “perfumer’s table”, one of the highlights of the exhibition, he acted as a historian by reconstructing kyphi, a mythical perfume whose recipes were inscribed on the walls of Egyptian tombs. The elegant copper-plated metal installation breaks down three stages of its manufacturing: we smell in a first cone a mixture of myrrh, pistachio mastic and juniper; then the cocktail to which cinnamon and fragrant rush were added, and finally honey.

Saudi artist Reem Al Nasser created this bridal costume in jasmine buds. / Claire Jaillard for La Croix L’Hebdo

This fun device constitutes a good illustration of the complexity of the perfumer’s profession, which draws from a palette of nearly a thousandingredients to compose its final “juice”. Christopher Sheldrake ends this olfactory journey in style with a personal creation, “Secret d’alcôve”, of which each visitor can place a drop in the palm of their wrist. A fragrance that is rosy, fruity and musky, with light notes of oud wood, saffron and amber… The quintessence of oriental perfume, in short.