ENGLISH:

Video art, photography, traditional perfumery, neurochemistry and otolaryngology combined to explore memory and role of place.

Produced in partnership with X Vitamin Gallery & Atomic Visual Support

DIM, Belgrade, April 2023

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Scent is our most primal sense. It is processed deep within the brain where it connects directly with the

regions that control emotion and memory. Therefore, it is easy to understand how a scent can transport us to a different place and time in a mere instant.

The main element of Sense Memory is a video-work. The footage was shot between 24.09.22-01.10.22 on the island of Cyprus by artist Lidija Ristić. Ristić returned to the island for the first time with her mother since they fled there in 1991 at the outbreak of the Yugoslav civil war. They left the island on the same date that they first arrived there, 31 years ago- thus symbolically closing a cycle. Cyprus was their first stop as refugees. It marked the beginning of many decades long life as diasporic peoples.

Before their return to the island, they visited the oldest perfumer’s shop in Belgrade: Sava. There they

described what they remembered Cyprus smelling like. The expert perfumer presented them both with two scents each, based on these memories. The women brought these perfumes with them on their trip-

like memories in liquid/physical form. Scent changes when it comes in contact with skin. It mingles with

the wearer’s own chemistry. This contact creates something new, born from the collision of the two

distinct elements: skin and perfume. The women’s own experience on the island mirrors this chemical

transformation. During the trip, their memories came in contact with the place where they were formed.

Cyprus had been preserved in their minds as an idyllic paradise that had sheltered them from conflict. As they retraced their steps from years ago, seeing people who had helped them transition into that new way of life, they were forced to update their perception of the place. It is like, everywhere else in the world,

imperfect, human, full of its own complications. 

 

The footage Ristić shot are not “recreations”. Instead she focused her camera on shots of water lapping,

citrus fruits swaying in the sun, women stroking their arms absent-mindedly as they are deep in

conversation. There is an emphasis on allowing imagery to flow and “speak for itself”- so as to evoke what it is like when one is recalling a memory.

 

Located at DIM Belgrade, a night club and alternative art venue space, the multimedia installation was centered on video work that functioned as “moving photographs”. These videos played on both large LED screens and were projection mapped on the walls of the club.

 

The Sava perfumes that the artist and her mother brought with them to Cyprus were present throughout the exhibition. Firstly they were paired with a soundscape of audio recorded on the island within the confines of a circular curtain wall. In this instance there was a sculpture made to house a diffuser that filled the intimate vestibule with perfume. By stepping into this shelter, visitors could isolate and immerse themselves with the scent and sound. 

 

One floor below, plants were arranged inside a circular table and interspersed among them were more diffusers wafting Sava scents. On the surface of the table top we arranged mandarin fruits. Visitors were encouraged to peel and eat these fruits while they walked around the space. 

 

The last element of this multi-sensory event was a specialty cocktail made of mangoes. The effect was that visitors could drink mango juice cocktails while surrounded by images of mangoes being peeled, eat mandarin as the watched footage of larger-than-life citrus alter the space around them and be surrounded by the perfumed air that recalled deep-seeded memories. 

 

SRPSKI:

Video umetnost, fotografija, tradicionalna parfimerija, neurohemija i otorinolaringologija kombinovane su kako bi istražile memoriju i ulogu mesta.

Proizvedeno u partnerstvu sa Galerijom X Vitamin i Atomic Visual Support

DIM, Beograd, april 2023.