Diary of Smells

Smell Flasks is a collective on-going artwork, made up of empty perfume bottles to be filled with a memory of a smell. The project started in Viana with 300 bottles and proceed to São Carlos, S.P. where 250 flasks were added. They were numbered, filed and the stories archived inside a dilapidated cabinet file drawer coming out of a wall. It is now an ongoing amalgamated project with almost 600 filled perfume bottles, a collection of smell flasks and the memories from different communities and towns around the world.

File Cabinet, Smell Flasks, 2011. Casarão, Viana, Espírito Santo, Brazil

URU-KU, the forgotten disciplines, a video installation, consists of 750 branches dipped in glue and urucum, a firing red condiment powder used in most dishes in Brazil. Besides its characteristic smell, this deep red powder is in use around the world as a substitute for the carcinogenic red dye. In this installation, the produced artificial smell of nest used in Nidus Vitreo  was substituted by the natural smell of urucum that unexpectedly impregnated the branches and the whole exhibit space.  The video I can’t smell him, is projected on a large wall behind the branches installation.

Sifting urucum powder

Brushing glue on the wooden branches

Gluing urucum powder on the wooden branches

URU-KU, the forgotten disciplines, 2011. Installation: 750 wood branches dipped in urucum powder, video projection and the smell of urucum. Photo credit: Tom Boecht

Book of Smells is the result of my involvement with a community of descendents of runway slaves. After visiting, eating, smelling and spending time with them, I realized that the knowledge of medicinal herbs used by their ancestors and healers was disappearing with the younger generations. The installation Book of Smells consists of an archival changing book/object where medicinal plants were squeezed between its pages. A series of 18 inkjet photographs documented the changes occurred in the herbs during the 3 months residence. Most of the herbs dried but some grew again as a result of the humidity of the area. The book-object, placed inside a cabinet file drawer emanated a combination of changing in time herbal smells. Part of the concept of Book of Smells is to build an herbal garden open for town use in the residence space.

Book of Smells, 2011. Installation: object bookart & 18 photographs ink jet printed on Hahnemhule paper

Book of Smells, 2011. Book art object

The accord Wet Earth is a mixture of humid, earthy, woody notes, with tones of fallen green leaves about the roots, mosses, resins that run from the trunks of trees, and the rainwater that floods the earth with its crying. (text from Givaudan do Brasil for the catalog Nidus Vitreo)

Smell of Wet Earth produced by the artist in collaboration with Givaudan do Brasil.

The accord Hot Sun represents the full force and power of nature. It is metallic, pungent, profound smell that simultaneously pleases and burns, warming us with its heat. Exactly how nature responds in accordance to man’s treatment of her. (text from Givaudan do Brasil in the catalogue Nidus Vitreo)

Smell of Hot Sun, an original smell produced by the artist in collaboration with Givaudan do Brasil.

Nidus Vitreo (Glass Nest) is an outcome of a long examination of our need to be sheltered in a moment in history where our sense of home has been shifted by the insecurities brought by ethnic wars, migrations, political divisions but mostly, the state of fragility of our environment.  It started with a photograph of a small bird that in the process of building its nest crashed towards its own image reflected on a glass window, perhaps a suicidal bird. It was a search for an essence – a primitive and powerful beginning where the sense of smell is present with its connection to memory. The installation is a large and yet, intimate construction of 1000 branches sculpted with the strength of avian architecture and molded in the fragility of glass resin. The construction takes approximately 160 sq ft floor space covered with a mirrored film skin. The sound & the projected texts from a smell/memory/blog are manipulated algorithmically through a randomized live computer program and sequence and time are never repeated. (http://www.joselycarvalho.net/blog/diaryofsmells)

Nidus Vitreo, 2010. Installation: 1000 resin glass molded
branches, mirrored film floor, original smells (smell of nest, smell of hot sun, smell of wet earth) projection, 6 channel sound design, computer programming. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro. Photo credit: Bogado.

SMELL OF NEST / CHEIRO DE NINHO

The accord NEST brings solace, nurture, and protection that man so desires. Fresh, transparent, and pleasant notes that hold and clothe us, bring us security, and, at the same time, reveal human fragility and our desperate need to feel protected. (from Nidus Vitreo catalog, Givaudan do Brasil)

Nidus Vitreo, 2010. Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro

Ich Kann Ihn Nicht Riesen, smell video installation (smell of open sea). Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, 2010.

Cheiro de Mar Aberto

NIDUS VITREO, A VIDEO DOCUMENTATIONS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULn7XYie6Pw&context=C4714cb6ADvjVQa1PpcFOuQyUAEWVQB8DkPQjbFa2t7CPQyqANcX0=

JOSELY CARVALHO E SUA EXPOSIÇÃO SENSORIAL

Programa Especial – TV Brasil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGIi8tYNVw4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m18bDKHWpP4&context=C470df27ADvjVQa1PpcFOuQyUAEWVQB9Wo2HgRSCmcaXmCQzt8Wz0=

The smell/video Ich kann ihn nicht risen/ I can’t smell him depicts the traveling of my avatar, Tracajá, a small yellow spotted turtle facing extinction from damming and water diversion projects in the Amazon basin, through the Gulf of Mexico to inspect the worst oil spill in U.S. history that has turned stretches of the area into a lifeless ocean in 2010. It also brings to surface the Chevron oil spill in the Bacia de Campos, Rio de Janeiro. The smell of open sea – a mixture of salty water, oil and ammonia for dead fish – is dispersed along with the video projection.

The development of the installation/project Diary of Smells:Nidus Vitreo dates from 2007 when the first resin glass branches were molded. The first installation, constructed of 250 branches, was Architectando. It was followed by Architectando: Elias’s Nest with 500 branches and six photographies in 2009.

ARCHITECTANDO  2008

Installation: 250 glass resin molded branches, mirrored film floor, photographic panel, smell of jasmin

ARCHITECTANDO: ELIAS’ NEST 2009

Installation: 500 glass resin molded branches, mirrored film floor, photography & smell of jasmine. Shown at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea / MAC, São Paulo, 2009. Photo credit: João Caldas

It was only in 2010, that Diary of Images:Nidus Vitreo was shown at the National Museum of Fines Arts in Rio de Janeiro with 1000 branches, sound, projected smell texts, video, and four original smells.

Photography; ink jet print on Hahnemuhle paper. 2008

only the memory of a smell

a bird crashes into a window mesmerized by its own reflection

Photography; ink jet print on Hahnemuhle paper

Photography; ink jet print on Hahnemuhle paper. 2008. Size; 33.5in x 43.3in

Bednest 1252. 2008. Photography; ink jet print on Hahnemuhle paper

ENTRE OS LENÇÓIS / BETWEEN THE SHEETS

The eternal human necessity to be physically and emotionally sheltered has been a major force in Josely Carvalho’s artwork. In this new visual artist’s book, she directs her focus to the lights and shadows of the negotiation process of intimacies. Her photography is constructed of dramatic scenarios containing an erotic allusion pulsating through life and death, complicity and annihilation.

Entre os Lençóis / Between the Sheets includes fragments of her poetry written in English and Portuguese, over the course of several years.

Available at:  http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/395604

Between the Sheets / Entre os Lençóis