SHIFT residents Kristyna Milde and Marek Milde’s installation Cabinet of Smells (2015) explores the idea “What is the smell of a home?” It engages our relationship to smells inherent to our daily surroundings that encompass our bodies, homes and living environments.
Join Kristyna and Marek Milde for a demonstration of Cabinet of Smells and an artist talk about the artists’ other projects revolving around the theme of domesticity. Using collected scents from home environments, Kristyna and Marek will walk visitors through their process for distilling “perfumed scents of home.” Visitors are asked to bring items from their household that have a particular scent unique to their home. Examples could be dust, toys, books, food, cleaners, cloth, etc.— bring anything you don’t mind parting with.
The project examines the boundaries between aroma and odor, and the cultural norms that define the pleasant, odd and acceptable. Modern tools produce a constructed landscape of artificial smells such as perfumes, cleaners and air fresheners, and their function to blur distinction between natural and artificial. While the perfume industry attempts to construct fictional scent identity, the Cabinet of Smells revisits what the real smell of a home actually is.
Space is limited. Please RSVP to megang@efanyc.org to reserve your spot by Friday, March 27th.
More information on Kristyna and Marek Milde’s work: www.mildeart.com. This event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Double Visions on view February 26 – March 28, 2015. For more information, please click here or email projectspace@efanyc.org.
Artists' Bio:
Born in Prague, Czech Republic, Kristyna and Marek Milde now live in Brooklyn, NY as a collaborative tandem working as artists, curators, and organizers. Their work investigates cultural forms and their connection to the environment and nature often taking form of interactive installation, or DIY projects. They regularly exhibit in the USA, and abroad including MoMA Studio, New York; NURTUREart, Brooklyn; EFA Project Space, New York; Wave Hill Sunroom Project Space, Bronx; Smack Mellon Gallery, Dumbo, Brooklyn; Anna Wallace Gallery, New York; Space Gallery, Pittsburgh; DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Meet Factory Center for Contemporary Art; Karlin Studios in Prague, Czech Republic and were part of the Dumbo Arts Festival. Their work has been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, Flashart, Hyperallergic Art Blog, NYFA current, WG News and BQE Media. Kristyna participated at the LMCC BFA program in 2011. Their work is part of private and public collections including the permanent public installation at Chateau Trebesice, Czech Republic and Manitoga, Russell Wright Design Center, Garrison, NY. They are currently participating in SHIFT Residency 2014-15 and have been selected for the LMCC Process Space Residency 2016. In 2007 they received their MFAs from Queens College, New York. They both work at the Czech Center NY, a cultural institute of the Czech Republic, located on the Upper East Side, where they curate and organize the program.
Image courtesy of Kristyna and Marek Milde.
