Alice Zerini-Le Reste

To breathe is to accept being haunted. Each inhalation carries traces of others: landscapes we have crossed, people we have met. As air fills our lungs, memories, feelings and dreams are imprinted in the porosity of our flesh.

Rooted in collected testimonies of everyday olfactory experience, this degree project approaches scent as a medium of encounter which connects people, places and time.

“The Scent of Ghosts – L’odeur des Fantômes” explores the translation of scent through ceramic and glass processes, transforming olfactory experience into texture, colour, and form. Ash glaze and cast glass become sites in which memory, landscape and breath are embodied. Materials linked to each testimony were integrated into the ceramic glazes; what remains is odourless, yet each piece carries a chemical and poetic transcription of a sensory memory.
What matters is the act of welcoming, letting the invisible touch us, letting ghosts accompany us. They ask only to pass through, and settle somewhere within.