Map of The Scent
LABEL
Crushed activated carbon, tea bag, glass jar
A self-initiated project
2025
PROJECT INFO
This is a research project that involves collecting and cataloging scents from 21 districts of Ho Chi Minh City - the hometown of the artist. Using portable scent-capture technology from powdered activated charcoal to collect headspace samples, along with fieldwork methodologies, the project gathers scents from 43 culturally and environmentally different locations across the city.
Research
After the trip to Ho Chi Minh Museum, I developed the gigamap to explore the relationship between museum-city-community and connect a chain of history (museum-city), customs, habits (city-community) and culture (museum-community).
As we live in the rapid life of the 21st century, we need to rediscover and perserve the odor we live in before it becomes memories in the future.
This can be a valuable opporturnity for the museum as it has always been a witness of city’s history.
Objecttive
The project aims to uncover and preserve invisible scentscape of Ho Chi Minh City - a place shaped by layered histories, rapid transformation, and complex sensory experiences. Blending science, art, and anthropology, it asks: What does a city smell like? And more importantly, what does it mean to capture these distinctive scents before they change or disappear?.
Process Documentation
Each scent is analyzed, documented, and archived alongside contextual information such as time, activity, and local narratives. I hung the tea bag filled with crushed activated carbon in the picked locations for 45 minutes to collect headspace samples.
Outcome
The collected scents are then reinterpreted into a scent-based urban map, allowing visitors to “smell” their way through the city, guided by invisible geographies and emotional cues.
