The International Fragrance Art Festival will bring together more than 100 artists, researchers, and practitioners from 32 countries. Over the course of five days, the festival will feature exhibitions, performances, lectures, masterclasses, workshops, literary readings, networking events, and community learning formats, highlighting the potential of scent as a medium of contemporary art and multisensory thinking.
This year’s festival theme, “Through the Fog of Uncertainty,” addresses life in a world shaped by wars, climate change, shifting value systems, and rapid technological development. In this context, fog serves as a metaphor for instability and uncertainty, while simultaneously inviting us to slow down, cultivate mindfulness, and engage in a sensitive dialogue with our surroundings. The festival’s artists are invited to reflect on how, within this shifting reality, it is possible to seek presence, points of reference, and new forms of stability.
Special Events
● On the evening of May 6, the festival will open with a new work combining scent and music, created especially for the festival by scent art pioneer Brian Goeltzenleuchter and composer Preston Swirnoff. The piece will be performed by the mixed choir of the Jāzeps Mediņš Riga Music School.
● On May 7, both festival exhibitions—“Through the Fog of Uncertainty” and “The Scent Archive”—will open.
● The program on May 8 will be dedicated to scent as a form of information archiving.
● On May 9, the focus will be on this year’s festival theme, including an online lecture by world-renowned neuroscientist Rachel Herz on the loss of smell.
● On May 10, the festival will conclude with a program featuring Latvian performance artists.
● On the evening of May 6, the festival will open with a new work combining scent and music, created especially for the festival by scent art pioneer Brian Goeltzenleuchter and composer Preston Swirnoff. The piece will be performed by the mixed choir of the Jāzeps Mediņš Riga Music School.
● On May 7, both festival exhibitions—“Through the Fog of Uncertainty” and “The Scent Archive”—will open.
● The program on May 8 will be dedicated to scent as a form of information archiving.
● On May 9, the focus will be on this year’s festival theme, including an online lecture by world-renowned neuroscientist Rachel Herz on the loss of smell.
● On May 10, the festival will conclude with a program featuring Latvian performance artists.