Enfleurage: capturing the exhalations of my body and its labor

”Enˑfleuˑrage: a process of extracting perfumes by exposing absorbents to the exhalations of flowers.”

In the coming pages, I will be discussing all that went into my current body of work: Enfleurage. I made a fragrance out of my sweat and bodily secretions. To make this fragrance, I captured all that I do: all my past times, labors, existence, by using the perfume process of enfleurage. The original intention of this technique was to capture the exhalations of flowers. In this case, I captured the exhalations of my body as a way to make presence of all the unseen labors and pastimes that contribute to genius and rage and my existence in womanhood. I wondered how I could quantify undeniable proof of labor outside the gaze. The fragrance is an archive, made over the course of a year.

This work is an attempt to conceptualize a life and work absent of what can be made a spectacle.