Carole Calvez, olfactory design: a sensory approach to creation

In 2022, she joined JAD, with the aim of enriching her creations through dialogue with other disciplines. In this context, she embarks on collaborative projects with color designer Marta Bakowski and intaglio printer Marie Levoyet, whose first stages of research are presented from September 14 to December 3, 2023, in the exhibition White Pages exhibition at JAD.

On this occasion, Carole Calvez takes a look back at her journey, and shares with us her sources of inspiration, her creative world, her way of perceiving scents and her view of olfactory design.

The profession of olfactory designer is unusual, and differs from that of perfumer in that it involves the creation of scents, not perfumes. How did this creative project gradually take shape? How does one become an olfactory designer? 

My world has always been very olfactory: I experience places and moments through my sense of smell. My project as an olfactory designer is therefore rooted in my passion for raw materials and my desire to pass on this passion. But before devoting myself fully to scent creation, I worked for 10 years in the perfume industry, on the supplier side, then in marketing and development, before deciding to train directly in perfumery. Ten years during which I accumulated notes and ideas for playful and aesthetic events or devices designed to awaken the olfactory sense. 

My work as an olfactory designer really began with workshops for the general public, designed to introduce people to the raw material, teach them how to describe it, and encourage them to use it as a means of expression and a way of reading the world. Olfaction is indeed a language in its own right, and I'm convinced that the ability to hone one's olfactory sensoriality and retranscribe these impressions into words is only a matter of practice.  

These reflections were then nourished by encounters, notably with Jacqueline Blanc-Mouchet, a pioneer of olfactory staging. The desire to explore the olfactory dimension in conjunction with other disciplines, and to create scent diffusion devices, gradually took precedence over direct transmission through workshops. I then began working in dialogue with theatrical and museum scenographers and visual artists, with whom I create scents that I then set in space and narrate. 

Another aspect of your creations concerns olfactory heritage. What does this involve? 

The heritage dimension is an important part of my work. It was a project for the Centre d'Interprétation Sensorielle des Vins de Champagne in Reims that put me on this path in 2020. The idea was to create an olfactory scenography around the smells that are part of the daily life of the region's winemakers and oenologists, such as the chalk of Aÿ-en-Champagne, the vine flower, or the pinot meunier, pinot noir and chardonnay grape varieties. Through this project, I immersed myself in their olfactory universe to capture their feelings and impressions, so as to be able to reconstruct and restore them, with a view to preserving this living sensory memory. 

Like sound heritage, olfactory heritage is attracting increasing interest from cultural institutions and public authorities, and this has encouraged me to get involved in other projects of this type, for example, very recently working on the reconstitution of the scent of a balm used for the mummification of Egyptian pharaohs, at the request of Barbara Huber, an archaeology researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Jena (Germany). In October, the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark will present the fruit of this collaboration, called "Scent of Eternity", as part of the exhibition "Ancient Egypt, Obsessed with Life".

While this notion of olfactory heritage is particularly present in some of my projects, it always finds its place in my work, olfaction being intrinsically and intimately linked to memory and recollection. What guides me, then, is the search for a translation that recreates olfactory impressions. It's a process of listening to the sensibility of others, enabling me to restore scents and their dreamlike aspects. 

How does JAD fit into your career path? What doors does the proximity and collaboration with its designers and craftsmen open for you? 

Beyond the question of scent diffusion devices, it's the desire to cross disciplines and move perfumery into new worlds and new fields of application that is central to my work. My aim is to create innovative, imaginative, poetic and aesthetically pleasing multi-sensory objects and installations. It's with this in mind that I joined JAD to work, over the long term, in dialogue with creators, craftsmen and designers, to invent such objects or installations integrating olfaction. 

First and foremost, this research raises technical and scientific issues. Odors are intangible and ephemeral, so diffusing them sustainably over time calls for the development of media to enclose them, whether using olfactory beads, the microencapsulation process, or the development of scented powders or odor-revealing mists. Then it's a matter of creating the scent diffusion system, the one that will enable it to be released, revealed or discovered. Finally, we have to invent a way of discovering and manipulating the scent, in order to arouse olfactory awareness and immerse the public in a genuine sensory experience.

At JAD, you have teamed up with color designer Marta Bakowski and gravure and intaglio printer and intaglio printer Marie Levoyet. These ongoing research projects, the first stages of which are presented in the exhibition White Pagesare a first step towards bringing the scent into the Object. What do they involve? How do they nourish your work?

With colorist designer Marta Bakowski, we are working on the development and reproduction of correspondences between the olfactory and colored worlds. We have worked hard to classify and associate scents with colors and vice-versa, gradually integrating their architectural dimension, density, facets, linearity and evolving nature. A sensitive, intuitive work, a sensory research which will certainly present multiple axes of application and which will constitute a formidable tool of creation and awakening to olfaction. 

At the same time, I work with Marie Levoyet, a rotogravure and intaglio printer. Together, we are seeking to recreate the Greek island of Chios and its sensory vibrations, through a process of technical experimentation with pigments and the chemistry of odors. This interpretative work will take the form of an art book, an olfactory, colorful and pictorial compendium. 

These are two radically different projects that came into being at JAD, but which we'd like to put into dialogue, and above all which, through the eyes of Marie and Marta, continue to open my eyes to the creative and expressive potential of olfaction.

Interview by Brune Schlosser

In charge of cultural and heritage projects at INMA and INMA correspondent at JAD