For the Venice Biennale 2024, Korean beauty brand Nonfiction and visual artist Koo Jeong A created an olfactory portrait of the entire Korean peninsula. To do so, they put out an open call for responses to the question: ‘What is your scent memory of Korea?’ to people from the country or with close links to it.
Koo and Nonfiction founder Haeyoung Cha received more than 600 written responses, each detailing unique memories from people based in cities or the countryside, with smells they encountered in public places or during private moments. Despite the difference between the submissions, certain themes kept reappearing, and from these overlapping responses, Koo selected a range of keywords they found particularly important and poignant. These keywords ranged from the beautiful to the grubby; from the natural world to the industrial city. The scent of sunlight and fallen leaves made the list, as did the scent of rice, lacquered wood, public bathhouses and a ‘metallic metro smell’.
