PRICE

YR

Let’s start with the title, L’Air du Temps, which references a women post war perfume by the French fashion house Nina Ricci, hinting at a history that is at once austere and bourgeoise. For the second part of the performance version’s title, you’ve chosen to add (breathing my beloved in), which is a quotation of a Kate Bush lyric suggesting our need for air in an asphyxiated world. Given this context, could we discuss the significance of the second part of the installation title: (air conditions)?

P

There are different aspects about it. When I was doing some research with Niklaus Mettler (AirSolutions^¹), who has closely collaborated in the development of the scent work, we read The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics by Hsuan L. Hsu, a timely exploration of how odor seeps into structural inequality. There was a chapter about the conditions of air in museum spaces. What stayed most in my mind was the regulations, the acts of policing the use of air as means of art conservation – especially painting, sculptures, etc – in terms of humidity, light, sunlight. We thought about these elements in relation to smell as air in a museum is strongly sanitized and controlled. Also, we noticed that these concerns are not intended for preserving live arts or about the needs of the performers and visitors, probably mostly because museums were not initially thought for hosting live performances.