Sniffing out the differences

Sniffing out the differences is a one-of-a-kind series of installations that uses multisensory interactions with a special focus on olfactory/smell interactions to drive compelling narratives. It tackles some critical issues facing modern society such as migration, nationalism, and genocide through multiple interactive installations. These installations go into the emotional nature of us, and question the facts of the identities we’ve formed.

Olfaction is capable of evoking deep emotional responses and is linked to memory. The smell of petrichor is enough to take us back on a beautiful nostalgia trip, reminding us of our childhood memories and games. Often spaces can be discerned through their characteristic odors. Some qualities of smell are very well coded in culture and have been internalized by societies.

It consists of five installations titled Jallianwala Bagh, Identity stories, Mir Abdul Attarwala, Xeno 500, and Diversity in us. Each of these installations tackles a key social or cultural issue relevant to current society by allowing the user to experience multisensory inputs guiding them through varied narratives.

Jallianwala Bagh explores the origins of national identity in India unmasking the racist treatments meted out during British Rule.

Identity stories and Diversity in us looks at how identities are formed in modern society and how diversity influences us.

Mir Abdul Attarwala allowed audiences to deeply think about people residing in Kashmir, a war-torn region at the center of a decades-long conflict.

Xeno 500 is a futuristic take portraying an India in which Xenophobia is seen as a virulent disease in need of a cure.This explored a combination of wearable technology and scents.

All the individual interactive installations build on the emotional nature of smell in different ways and depict cultural phenomena through mapping them into scents. They talk about how new identities and cultures emerge with mobility and how new distinct patterns are created, like the patterns in the kaleidoscope which when combined form a dizzying array of patterns but are in a sense, identifiable as a whole.