back to the overview I deutschsprachige Version des Textes Can we attribute a scent to ideology, or forms of government? If so, what would democracy smell like? Are olfaction and politics somehow connected? In her artistic research project, Elektra Stampoulou approaches politics through scent. The artist examines relations between odours and impressions of democracy based on random encounters and conversations with Berliners, and her personal experiences in the urban space. Participants associated the smell of old paper with bureaucracy, the smell of many bodies in the train or at a festival with equality, or the smell of burnt matter with memories of demonstrations. However, odours can also reveal strong disparity in co-existence, like for example, a refreshing perfume in contrast with the unpleasant, intrusive stench of the canal. Stampoulou distilled materials collected during the residency and combined them with scent molecules in order to create new scents, which she fire-sealed and preserved in glass ampoules. These ampoules can be broken and poured, added and mixed in a lab watch glass every few days, so that scents diffuse throughout the gallery space as time passes. The artist also produced textual forms during her research process. Her poems in transparent foil are stacked one on top of the other and in them we can find a mixture of memories, imaginary accounts and anecdotal events from her field notes. Her installation also features natural braided wool, glass tubes, a pillow, and visual notes, scented and scattered in space. More strongly than what is seen or heard, odours create intense reactions, bringing forward past feelings and events related to them. During the past few years, marketing strategists have used this property in public and private spaces to influence consumer behaviour, work environments, and even enhance political campaigns. At the same time, olfaction has received little attention in western culture since the Enlightenment. With our language offering very few ways to describe odours beyond the binary pleasant/unpleasant, good/bad, the absence of smells has been equated with cleanliness and order, and smelliness with chaos, dirt, and the marginalized. Stampoulou counters this binary reduction of odours with openness. Her point is that the sensory impressions evoked through scent can initiate possibilities of agency and inclusion. In this way, scents are intended to enable new relationships between individuals and the public space, and to introduce new ways of political agency through the senses, resisting dominant narratives, even approaching democratic processes differently. Thus, the work of Stampoulou does not merely serve as an archive of remembered or invented smells and events, but aims to encourage visitors to use the power of olfaction for renegotiating, imagining and forming forward-looking spaces of political coexistence. Text: Dr. Silke Förschler Special thanks to Theo Echter, Giorgos Makris, and to all the participants who shared their experiences and stories. Photo: Katerina Sysova Photo: Katerina Sysova Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: bmin0r Photo: Katerina Sysova Elektra Stampoulou Elektra Stampoulou engages in art and research. Her practice mainly develops around questions related to narrative, dissemination, iterability, the undecidable, and the enchanting. Her work, usually in the form of installations, performances, and texts, wavers between the fictional and the factual. Employing time-dependent procedures, various media, and often tactile and olfactory components, she attempts to explore among others, shared experience, agency, indeterminacy and the digressive. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Athens School of Fine Arts on an IKY scholarship. She holds a BA in literature from NKUA, an integrated MFA in visual arts from ASFA, and an MPhil in ethics from NKUA. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elektra.stampoulou/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oh.so.many.narratives/
