SISSEL & SMELL
Smell and fables share a remarkable resonance: both bypasslogic and go straight to memory. A scent can collapse decadesinto a single instant, just as a fable carries its wisdom intact acrosscenturies. In The Soul Garden, the stories of the Panchatantrafables — of cleverness, courage, and interdependence — find atactile counterpart in scent. Visitors experience these narrativesnot just through sight and story, but through an olfactory languagethat resonates on a bodily, instinctive level.
Chemical signals were among the earliest forms of communicationbetween living beings — and they remain one of the mostimmediate, instinctive, and precise ways to convey truth. ForThe Soul Garden at Design Miami/Paris, Olfactory Artist SisselTolaas has been invited by the studio to transform smell into aprimary medium, shaping how visitors perceive, remember, andconnect with the animal world.
For each sculpture, Tolaas captured molecules present during itsmaterial creation, alongside scents drawing from the animalsthemselves, their habitats, and their interactions with humans.Using a combination of nanotechnological and analoguediffusion devices, these scents permeate the surrounding garden,layering from one sculpture to the next — mirroring the invisiblebonds shared through air across species. The result enablesthe recreation of complex odors but also reveals hidden layersof presence, character, and environment that would otherwiseremain invisible.
The effect is a multi-sensory environment where memory,empathy, and imagination intertwine. Smell does more thanaccentuate; it brings the garden’s world to life, rendering ittangible, inhabited, and unforgettable. It deepens the synergybetween fable and form, reinforcing the moral, emotional, andecological connections between us animals.
