{"id":359317,"date":"2024-02-28T19:56:04","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T22:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/artwork-by-brazilian-explores-fragrances-of-desert\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T17:14:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T20:14:51","slug":"artwork-by-brazilian-explores-fragrances-of-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/artwork-by-brazilian-explores-fragrances-of-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Artwork by Brazilian explores fragrances of desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The vastness of the desert sand and dunes in AIUla, a city located in North Saudi Arabia, became an open pavilion of exhibition Desert X AlUla \u2013 on until 23 March. There artists were challenged \u2013 sometimes by themselves \u2013 to create art installations and works in the desert. With the title \u201cIn the Presence of Absence\u201d and curated by Brazil\u2019s Marcello Dantas alongside Oxford, UK-based Lebanese Maya El Khalil, the festival features an installation by a Brazilian artist, Karola Braga (pictured).<\/em><\/p>\n

Amid works seeking to complement, dialogue or juxtapose themselves to the harshness of the desert, Braga explored fragrances and scents of a region that became the birthplace of the spice trade through the incense route. An olfactory artist and researcher, Braga realized immediately that she had no way to compete with the prominence of a desert, but by creating installation Sfumato<\/em>, she sought to bring to mind the memories that scents can bring.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Giant incense burner takes art to the desert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you deal with the sheer scale of the desert, it is always the protagonist. So I sought to find in the visual and structural part \u2013 the giant incense burner \u2013 a maximum integration with the landscape in a bid to maintain the aroma as the work\u2019s main focus,\u201d she told ANBA.<\/p>\n

Some of the perfumes that the incense launches into the air are symbolic of the region, like myrrh and frankincense. An olfactory scholar, Braga says the scents are able to materialize and bring back memories \u2013 whether it is the smell of a place, a flower, or a product. \u201cWhen I catch a smell, depending on where I am, what does this smell means in that culture? That\u2019s what I try to explore as an artist, besides creating these memories, recreating olfactory environments. It was amazing to do this work there, do the research, retrace the incense route,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Desert X was founded in California in 2017, and since then, it has every two years invited artists to create projects that interact with the desert. The festival has had editions in the Coachella Valley, California, and AIUla. This year, besides Braga, the festival features projects by artists from South Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Mexico, Lebanon, Italy, Ghana, Iraq, as well as a French Algerian. For his part, Dantas has curated other exhibitions in Brazil, including as art director of Japan House and Museum of Portuguese Language in S\u00e3o Paulo, where the artist\u2019s studio is as well.<\/p>\n

Braga recalls that the opportunity to participate in Desert X arose after Dantas and she met at an olfactory art award ceremony in Los Angeles, United States, in 2023. \u201cI asked him to let me \u2018perfume\u2019 the desert,\u201d she recalls. Following that meeting, she was challenged to create a project \u201covernight.\u201d Since the incense route is part of her academic works and professional life, she managed to meet the challenge on time.<\/p>\n

Amid discussions and ideas with Dantas, Braga was in AIUla last June and again for a month from January to February this year. She will go back there in early March, when she will give a workshop on this work. \u201cThey are investing heavily in tourism, hotels, and I find it very interesting that they are also investing in culture. There are plans to open museums, cultural institutions. I think it is amazing,\u201d she says. Find out more on Desert X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Translation by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Karola Braga participates in Desert X in AIUla, Saudi Arabia, with an installation that evokes the memory and scents of the incense trade route. Festival co-curator Marcello Dantas is from Brazil, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2317,"featured_media":358443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[27170,11910,414,30664,22644,232,40916,20095,47701,47697,47698,47702,6385,29862,393,47703,47700],"class_list":{"0":"post-359317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-alula","9":"tag-arabia-saudita-en","10":"tag-artist","11":"tag-artista-en","12":"tag-brasil-en-2","13":"tag-brazil","14":"tag-fragrance","15":"tag-incense","16":"tag-installation","17":"tag-karola-braga","18":"tag-marcelo-dantas","19":"tag-olfactory","20":"tag-perfume","21":"tag-sao-paulo-en-2","22":"tag-saudi-arabia","23":"tag-scent","24":"tag-sfumato"},"wps_subtitle":"Karola Braga participates in Desert X in AIUla, Saudi Arabia, with an installation that evokes the memory and scents of the incense trade route. Festival co-curator Marcello Dantas is from Brazil, too.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}