Please join curator Saskia Wilson-Brown and artist Se Young Au for a special walkthrough of Ether: Aromatic Mythologies.

Ether: Aromatic Mythologies is Craft Contemporary’s first scent-based art exhibition that presents a selection of olfactory-centric installations. Curated by Saskia Wilson-Brown, the exhibition explores mythologies from various parts of the world in a narrative tapestry that transcends time and place.

“The artists in this exhibition all share an interest in how scent can convey personal, and cultural histories”, says curator Saskia Wilson-Brown. “The result is a rich tapestry of meaning, in part expressed in the most embodied way of all: smell.”

Participating artists include Alisa Banks (USA), Andrés Cortes (USA), Cristian Marianciuc (Romania), Sarana Mehra (UK/USA), Maki Ueda (Japan), Joe Merell (USA), Peter de Cupere (Belgium), Se Young Au (Korea/ USA), M Dougerty (USA), Regina Mamou (USA), Sean Raspet (USA), Karola Braga (Brazil), and Russell Harris (USA).

Saskia Wilson-Brown is a Cuban-British-American artist based in Los Angeles. In 2012, Saskia created The Institute for Art and Olfaction (IAO), a social art practice devoted to access and experimentation in creative practices with scent. Through the IAO, she has launched projects with institutions such as Pulitzer Foundation, Getty Institute, Hammer Museum, Wallace Collection, Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA), and many more. In 2013, she launched an international awards mechanism for independent perfumers called the Art and Olfaction Awards, and in 2018 she started Open Sourcing Smell Culture, an initiative devoted to open principles in perfumery. In 2019/20 she served as a visiting lecturer in the MA Fashion program at the Royal College of Art in London, and in 2020/21 she was as a Ballen Scholar at New Mexico Highlands University. In addition to running the IAO, Saskia produces and hosts a radio show and podcast called Perfume on the Radio, is writing a book to be released in 2026, and is working on her PhD exploring perfumery’s role in creative cultural expression at University College Dublin's SmartLab.

Se Young Au (b. 1984 Seoul) is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer who received their BA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. Their work is at the intersection of digital collage, personal archive, installation, and olfaction. They have worked within the context of both the fine art and commercial world. Au has exhibited at Henry Art Gallery (Seattle) in collaboration with painter Gabriella Sanchez, El Segundo Museum of Art, AHL Foundation in New York City, and the Institute of Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles. Select clients include: Museum of Natural History Los Angeles, Fly By Jing, and Broccoli Magazine. In 2023, they co-founded Errare, a sensory spatial design studio with their creative partner, Kaitlyn Darby. Additionally, Au writes a quarterly dispatch, Transmissions, which explores olfaction as a tool for transmuting grief.

Sarana Mehra is a multidisciplinary artist whose work examines the relation between the body, body-politic and the cycle of disintegration and evolution in human-made systems like art, language and technology. Drawing on Eastern and Western mythologies and the artifacts of past civilizations gathering dust in our museums, Sarana uses her practice to examine a “future relic”. Each piece, like the remnants of our ancestors, leaves clues and symbols but ultimately obfuscates their contemporary use and ritual.

Sarana is a bi-racial artist living and working in Los Angeles. her BFA from the University of Oxford and her MFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (London). Sarana Mehra is a co-founder of Artists 4 Democracy, part of the Binder of Women art collective. She advocates for healthcare justice having been born with a rare illness. Sarana is bisexual and her pronouns are she/her.

Exhibition Walkthrough of Ether: Aromatic Mythologies

at Craft Contemporary