Scents of Exile is an olfactory art project curated by Ashraf Osman in partnership with Syndicate and Givaudan. It takes as its point of departure an evocative text about memory, identity and nostalgia associated with scents of cities and places no longer accessible, from In the Presence of Absence by renowned Arab poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Recently, the proposal for Scents of Exile placed 5th place in the ApexArt competition, out of 532 proposals from 75 countries worldwide: http://apexart.org/up2016/ranking.php
While it’s frustrating for it to be so close and not make it to the top 3 that will be realized, it’s also quite a validation for an olfactory art project to be in the top 1% of proposals, according to an international panel of over 200 jurors.

The project was also recently featured in an excellent essay titled Flower Power by Dana El-Masri for ReOrient magazine on scent, identity, and culture in the Middle East.

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