The Ethics of Scent

Voila! My first post written in situ here at the Ethics Centre Australia where I am doing a 10-day Artist Residency - I applied with a proposal to explore the ethics of scent and put my research findings into an artwork; that is to say, if I could say for certain that a scent ingredient was ethical then I would put it into a scented painting. And if none pass the test, so be it. The ethically-scented painting remains unscented.

In the perfume industry, terms like "clean", "natural", "vegan", and "cruelty-free" abound. Yet, what these terms indicate, and whether they are actually ethical (and if so, towards whom?), is divided along multiple axes and remain hotly debated. Are synthetic ingredients bad because they are developed in a laboratory rather than sourced from nature? Are natural perfumes and skin care products exploiting our natural resources? Is it more ethical to use a synthetic ingredient because it does not involve an animal product? I would like to explore these questions to try to find out what a truly ethical scent would be - what criteria would it have, and how would I justify its ingredients? Whatever the answer - perhaps there is no such thing - I will incorporate it into a scented painting that can be viewed, read about, and smelled.

The minds here at the Ethics Centre are robust and flexible (how else would you be hired to tackle ethical questions for a living?) so I intend to summon them as required whilst I’m here. We’re starting with an informal chat this afternoon and I’ll see what else comes up.

This is my first time as an Artist-In-Residence and I must say I do enjoy the fact that there’s a research element to all this… it feels grounding, somehow. I suppose I don’t feel pressured to be the genius artist in her creative zone bringing to life the metaphysical confoundments that no normal mind could comprehend; rather I’m completing an assignment which I have assigned myself.

So, in summary, I am now embarking on the research phase. My general plan is to start the art early next week (it’s Tuesday today), after all the ingredients I have at hand have been put through the test. I’ll come back later today to report on what I’ve discovered so far.