(Postponed) Scent Lab with Haley Alexander van Oosten

This event has been postponed until further notice. Our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Registration 1:15pm
Gallery Tour 1:30pm
Lab 2:00pm
Finish 3:30pm

Scent Lab Ticket Holders can enjoy a special discount on Hidden Forests Afternoon Tea Set at AMMO on the same day from 15:30-18:30:
Tea set for one $220; Tea set for two $380.

Meet participating artist and botanical fragrance designer Haley Alexander van Oosten in this one of a kind fragrance lab. During this rare opportunity to go behind the scenes with the artist and experience the creative process of blending a distinctive scent, Haley will guide us through the significance of each plant essence chosen for her interactive installation The Ripening of Mangosteen: A Scent Offering in Fragments.  With these essences that have wafted through the exhibit in scent atomizers turned off and on by visitors, the group will work with Haley to recreate the final scent blend for the exhibition. Following the workshop, guests are invited to AMMO to enjoy a Hidden Forests Afternoon tea set inspired by the luscious forest greenery that surrounds the site.

About the art work

The olfactory installation by artist Haley Alexander van Oosten explores the intangible effects of climatic change, specifically the devastation caused by Typhoon Mangkhut. The scent is made with essences extracted from uprooted mangroves collected after the typhoon in Shek-O along with seaweed, charred seashells and firewood, kalamansi and white flowers, and sacred incense woods. Dispersed in five atomizers in each chamber of the gallery, the scent fragments engage us to consider our intrinsic yet often invisible interconnections with nature. Mangkhut means mangosteen in Thai and the tropical fruit is distinguished by its necessity to ripen on the tree to yield its sweet sectional morsels. Like the fruit itself, the Ripening of Mangosteen is a site-specific botanical work. The title is an active description of the installation itself; it describes the instructions for the visitor to become part of the artwork. By turning the atomizer’s knobs to increase and decrease the intensity of the different scent segments, the scent merges and ripens in space. As each visitor engages with the installation and offers a new composite scent, the work is completed.

Haley Alexander van Oosten is a scent artist from Los Angeles, California. After immersing in the study of Japanese literature, she began to consider the possibility of translating the language of Nature. Haley founded the LA-based botanical fragrance design studio L’Oeil du Vert in 2005 with this intention. Distilling both the history and physicality of plants to their essence, her work explores the perspective of plants in guiding us to adapt and evolve to the subtle and cataclysmic planetary shifts upon us.

Haley Alexander van Oosten是位駐洛杉磯的嗅覺藝術家，她以香水作為媒介，刺激人們的嗅覺，藉此探索不同的感受和體驗。在完成了對日本文學的研究後，她開始尋找方法翻譯大自然所使用的語言。在這想法驅使下，2005年，她在洛杉磯創立了香水設計工作室L’Oeil du Vert。通過分析植物進化演變的歷史和其特性，她的作品嚐試引導人們從植物的角度出發，感受氣候轉變所帶來的影響。

• You are required to present electronic confirmation to enjoy the special discount Tea Set.
• Tea Set must be enjoyed on the program day.

The exhibition is made possible with generous support from Burger Collection, Hong Kong and Boris Yeung and Amy Ng. Additional support is provided by Moiz Zilberman and Pegi and Michael Touff.