Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Fotografie & miros: 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞́

Fotografia și parfumul se adresează unor simțuri diferite și au limbaje la fel de diferite. Cum e posibil să surprinzi vizual un parfum sau să restitui mirosul unei fotografii? Pare imposibil. Cu toate acestea, fotografia și parfumul au făcut casă bună, publicitatea pentru parfumuri fiind un exemplu grăitor. De la fotografiile realiste, cu flori care intră în compoziția parfumurilor, sau fotografiile cu „muzele”-simbol din showbiz până la fotografiile abstracte, care își propun să capteze o stare afectivă indusă de un parfum sau altul, imaginea a însoțit constant olfactivul în secolele XX și XXI, ca un comentariu în surdină sau o explicitare adesea redundantă. Unii artiști vizuali au fost mai preocupați decât alții să investigheze zona de suprapunere între cele două arte și simțuri, printre ei numărându-se și artista de origine canadiano-elvețiană 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞́ (născută în 1984), care este interesată precumpănitor de reprezentarea vizuală a intangibilului – în special, de simțul mirosului și de expresia lui fotografică.

Site: https://www.christelleboule.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christelle_boule/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christelle.boule

 

Dintre proiectele dedicate simțului mirosului și parfumului, amintim câteva: 

Opium — 2015

This photo series is inspired by the olfactory memory triggered by a scent. “Opium” was the perfume my mother used to wear when I was young. It also became my brother’s signature scent in his teenage years when he started to wear it too. My memories related to this fragrance are a sweet mix of these two people I love.

L’Air du temps — 2015

This photo series is inspired by my grandmother perfume of choice “L’Air du Temps”. Many personal memories are related to this fragrance, yet it is worn by other people on the street, on the bus or at the cinema. These olfactory memories are mixed with the everyday life of a young woman that have one thing in common, a perfume.

Il profumo è in mostra — 2018

“Il profumo è in mostra” is a multisensorial installation master perfumer Francis Kurkdjian and myself have created for “O Festival”.
Presented at the National Museum of Rome, the exhibition made visitors experience the act of smelling a perfume while looking at it. Each dark cabin, filled with a fragrance, offered a window on the fragrance chemical reaction on photographic paper.
Abstract shapes emerge, depending on the size and weight of the molecules of the perfume that form patterns and thus give an abstract visual representation corresponding, in chemical terms, to the composition of the perfume.
— Exhibited at the National Museum of Rome, 2018. (Photo credit Andrea Serrau)

Jenny Smells Like Biscuit — 2018

“Jenny Smells Like Biscuit” is a project about different people wearing the same perfume. Originally meant to be a casting for portraits, the email exchange between the volunteer models and myself were already enough to depict the personality of each perfume wearer.
Deciding not to go further with the photoshoot, this publication is a selection of messages from different people who wear the same fragrance: L’Homme, 1 Million, Terre, Invictus, Le Mâle, Chanel No.5, L’Air du Temps, Angel, Opium and J’adore.
— Exhibited at ECAL ‒ Ten Years in Renens, ELAC Gallery, Lausanne, 2018
— Self published, 60 pages, 2016

Parfums — 2019

This photographic study is made from perfume essences and covers an experimental process. In a photo laboratory, one drop of each fragrance is applied on photographic paper. Once the liquid has dried, the paper is exposed to light. The final step consist of developing clichés, and allowing the perfume to appear.
— Exhibited at “Sillages”, Pasquart Museum, Biel, 2019
— Self published book (sold out), 2015 

Expanded Drops — 2019

A collaboration with Maison Francis Kurkdjian.
Bringing a fragrance to life is an evocative and vibrant experience. A few drops of a perfume are laid on silver-colored paper, dried, exposed to light, and bathed in photo development fluids to reveal the image.
The “Expanded Drops” series is a selection of original photographic prints, all made using fragrances created by Francis Kurkdjian for his eponymous house.
“Expanded Drops” was presented during the “Sillages” exhibition at the Photoforum Pasquart Museum in Biel (Switzerland), from January to March 2019.

Lumen — 2022

Exposed to the sun (UV) during multiple days, covered in botanicals and influenced by changing weather (rain, dust, wind, pebbles), the light sensitive surface absorbs its scenery.
Its experimental process, to slowly record time, reveals shapes and colors creating a unique photography. This 200 years old photographic technique is called “Lumen print”.
This ongoing project is evolving through various blooms and upcoming seasons.

Synesthesia — 2023

Synesthesia was born from my desire to visually translate the movements of thought into photography. In order to bring this project to life, I went to meet synesthetes whose sense of smell is linked to the sense of sight.
Our conversations allowed me to build a collection of images inspired by the abstract and poetic forms that they described to me after smelling an odor. For example, for some of them, the smell of a banana was represented visually by the appearance of “green, round shapes with small red spots” while for others, it was “a large blue triangular shape with brown outlines”.
To create this photographic series, I made an ingenious device that worked like a scanner, accompanied by a bank of shapes and colors. With this device, I was able to recreate the synesthetic visions of each participant. Through this process, the image then becomes the direct extension of the inner perception of synesthetes.
Today, my project brings together a collection of experimental scans (each print is unique) creating a new link between the visual and the olfactory.
— Exhibited at “Fototechnika”, Pasquart Museum, Biel, 2023 

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