What does death smell like? This LA perfume exhibition takes your nose into unusual territories

Have you ever wanted to relive a significant memory from your childhood? Or wondered what it would be like to smell a mythological being — like the African goddess of the ocean, Yemayá?

In the new exhibition Storycraft: Twelve Olfactory Narratives, at the Institute for Art and Olfaction in Chinatown, 12 local perfumers were prompted to create scents linked to a specific cultural memory or myth.

I sat down with two of the perfumers to explore how and why they created a death-themed scent for the exhibition.

Earth, rain and fruit: Evoking the smell of her great-grandmother’s funeral in Jamaica

NaMoya Lawrence and Debbie Lin — known collectively as SAMAR — are an independent perfume duo that’s among the 12 perfumers featured at the Storycraft exhibition.

Lawrence wanted to evoke a very specific memory with her scent — when she experienced death for the first time at 7 years old at her great-grandmother’s funeral in her hometown Accompong Maroon in Jamaica.

She remembers smelling the thunderstorm, butter cookies and guineps.

“It was really rainy, it was dark, and everyone was out dancing in the streets except for the chickens who were hiding in the doorstep.  And I just have these really visceral scent memories from that moment of the earth and the rain and the fruit,” Lawrence said. “So this perfume is kind of this balancing act between the first experience of grief but also the celebratory nature of this moment with my family.”

Bottling a memory

For Lin and Lawrence of SAMAR, translating an idea into a scent involves a lot of chemistry and testing.

They build their perfumes by pulverizing and distilling extracts from real plants and fruits.

Then, there’s an editing process.

One person makes a blend of fragrances, or an "accord," as it's called in the perfume world. The other acts as a copy editor, noting what’s missing.

For example, in their exhibit fragrance, the duo used a chemical called geosmin to emulate the smell of a thunderstorm.

“ Realism has always been a big goal for us because we want to have people who smelled our work to really have a visceral kind of reaction or memory,” Lin said.

Debbie Lin (left) and Na-Moya Lawrence (right) stand in front of their exhibition fragrance "Death and Other Joys."

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James Chow

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What you can expect to see and smell at the exhibition

“For the residency and for the exhibit, we emphasized newer perfumers — people who haven't been around for 10-plus years — and folks from the local area 'cause we really wanted to highlight Los Angeles' thriving perfume scene,” Institute for Art and Olfaction co-founder Saskia Wilson-Brown said.

At the Storycraft exhibit, visitors will see a display of 12 different glass jars with white beads infused with fragrances alongside an accompanying artwork or object. And you can open the bottle and take a sniff.

“We chose to show the scents in that way because we all have memories of being sprayed at the department stores. No one likes it, you know? So we wanted an opt-in experience,” said Wilson-Brown, who also is one of the co-curators for the exhibition. “But also the perfumes were developed not necessarily for skin application. ... They're designed to be experienced in the bottle as they are being displayed.

The rise of perfume

Perfume is kind of having a moment right now. In 2024, fragrance was the fastest growing sector within beauty because of Gen Z and teen boys increasingly buying fragrances, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Wilson-Brown attributes this trend to perfume’s price tag in comparison to other luxuries.

“ With social media, there's this sort of hyper-fixation on the uniqueness of every individual,” she said. “[Perfume] is relatively affordable in terms of luxury.”

Wilson-Brown also said the independent scent scene in L.A. has been thriving in the last decade. Although for independent perfumers like SAMAR, the objectives to scent aren’t necessarily commercial.

“Scent isn't just a commodity. Scent is artwork, right?” Lawrence said. “And scent doesn't always have to be something beautiful. It can just be something that makes you feel something.”

Storycraft: Twelve Olfactory Narratives is open now until Oct. 31. It complements the IAO Storylab installation at the Craft Contemporary, which is ongoing until Oct. 26.