collaboration with Evelyn Von Michalofski

Evolving from The Seven Sauces, performed in Vancouver in 1999, The Seven Scents performance continues the sound-scent journey based on the concept of the Seven Seas. Using as a point of departure the legendary exoticism and adventure of the Seven Seas, The Seven Scents event provides an occasion for virtual travel. Passersby are invited to lie back and relax on cruise ship deck chair recliners facing Lake Ontario, and listen to a series of soundscapes while inhaling the ambiance of travel. Like spa therapists, we gently facilitate each lounger’s sensorial reverie. Transportation and memory are two key means of escape in the effort to get away. Transportation is conjured and memory is triggered via a series of white noise sounds recorded at seven targeted sites related to travel, and a series of scents that combine the desire for escape with the inescapable everyday. Using a base of a mass-produced perfume, a perfume that promises “an ocean breeze passing over floral and exotic notes,” seven related eau de toilette scents were concocted. They employ a base note of salty sea and incorporate post-industrial, fast food and bodily smells within the top, bottom and middle notes. Distilling together sound and scent, romance and reality, the piece contemplates the fantasies of escape and the odious actualities of tourism.

Curated by Jim Drobnick and Paul Couillard for “FIVE HOLES: reminiSCENT” Performance Event, Harbourfront, Toronto. Commissioned by FADO. Supported by The Canada Council for the Arts.