ines

Gratitude and wonder: co-hosting the scent dinner of dreams

Culinary Art, Olfactory Experiences, Sensory Art, Storytelling and Art Making / February 5, 2024

In this month’s longer blog, Lisa Witter and I reflect on our co-creation and co-hosting of our first bespoke scent dinner: “The Ethereal Feast”. If our offering resonates with you, please get in touch.

In a world where we spend increasing amounts of time on our computers and cell phones, we often find ourselves feeling alone together, despite being constantly connected. In an age increasingly dominated by machines and AI, we are reminded that what makes us human is our consciousness, self-awareness, creativity, empathy, and ability to experience and express emotion. A scent dinner is a sensual and communal experience that satisfies a craving many of us have but often overlook. It allows us to sit in awe of the human experience.

Our scent dinner “The Ethereal Feast” is a unique and immersive experience that offers a journey through food, conversation, and introspection. It involves a carefully curated menu that engages all the senses, including taste, smell, sight, touch, and sound. The rhythm of the courses, surprises, and conversations unfold organically throughout the scent dinner experience

Lisa writes:

Ines is a unique and valuable asset to society – an artist who intuitively captures emotions and translates them into art, enabling us to experience these feelings firsthand. Our collaboration on this scent dinner led to a successful co-creation that resonated with a diverse global community.

Participants immersed themselves and savored what mattered to them – they reflected deeply and committed to savoring more in their lives, activating gratitude from within. Gratitude, a powerful tool, helps us to focus on what we are blessed with, rather than on what we lack. Scientific evidence shows that gratitude triggers physiological changes in our bodies activating the parasympathetic nervous system, aiding rest and digestion. This bodily response means that gratitude can lower blood pressure and heart rate and promote overall relaxation. And who doesn’t need that these days?

Ines’ artistry and our collaboration have not only created a unique scent dinner experience but contributed to the well-being of every participant. Her work, and our collaboration, are a testament to the power of art and gratitude in shaping our human experience and promoting health and relaxation. Now, we aim to expand this experience around the world.

I love bringing people together, to me life is like a grand mosaic. The vibrant tiles of the small moments come together to form a bigger, more striking design. It’s all about observing the various facets of experience as they interact with each other. Our scent dinners are a culmination of flavors, wonders, laughter, curious glances, touches, and the deliberate savoring of every moment.

Lisa and Ines write:

The participants of our scent dinner were deeply moved. It opened up their senses and created new connections within themselves and with their dinner partners. Their testimonials highlight how our scent dinners offer a dining experience that transcends the ordinary, engaging people on multiple sensory levels and fostering deep connections between them.

Ramona Liberoff recalls the magic of an evening that turned strangers into lifelong friends.

Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir recounts surrendering to the sensory journey we co-curated, which created a blend of awe-inspiring tastes, sounds, and shared laughter, all suspended within a singular physical space and moment in time.

Tracy Gray, a practicing Buddhist, emphasizes the rarity of being fully present and describes our scent dinner as a unique opportunity to reach this state – in a fun way.

Cassie Robinson speaks to the heightened feelings and sensations that the dinner encourages, enjoying the mystery and connection it fosters.

Sana Kapadia reflects on the dinner as a sensual and surreal event that engages all the senses and emphasizes the art of savoring.

April Rinne sees the dinner as not just an exploration of the senses, but also a metaphorical journey that continues to inspire her through a menu-turned-artwork at home.

Geraldine Chin Moody describes the scent dinner as a unique immersion in nature and humanity that brought home the importance of self-care, community, and environmental stewardship

We love how these accounts collectively capture our intentions for the scent dinner. This immersive experience is not only about the food but is also about the deeper exploration of presence, connection, and the human experience, curated lovingly to leave a lasting impact on all of its participants.

Image credits:
B&W: Jana Pahlke
Color: Ines Lechleitner

Family portraiture: a unique aunt-niece collaboration

Portraits, Storytelling and Art Making, Workshops / June 8, 2023

My niece is very smart – she is sociable, she is sweet, and she is kind. At the moment, she’s reaching the end of her time at high school and, to my delight, has developed (pun intended) an interest in photography on the side of her studies. So, when she asked me to teach her about analogue and portrait photography, it was easy to say yes.

Having my niece see my studio in Berlin and work here with me was important for both of us, so I invited her to join me with a friend. And in the studio, I simply followed their needs: the perfect combination of input and exchange.

First, with our analogue cameras in our hands, I realised that although my niece and her friend had received some photography instruction and explanations before, it so happened that no one had ever taken the time to really explain to them the relation between speed and aperture. This relationship is a vital one in portraiture photography – in all photography, really – since it dictates the depth of field, i.e.  the distance between the nearest and furthest element in a scene that appears sharp enough in the image. Both young women are really smart, excellent students, but until then they had never dared to ask and ask again until they had truly grasped the concept. So that’s exactly what I made a safe space for them to do.

To put their newly gained portraiture photography knowledge into practice, I leant them my analogue middle format camera and we all took turns posing and photographing. I’ve put my most favourite of the images we created collaboratively here in this blog. And when they both held the light meter next to my camera and discussed the set-up so confidently, I could see that they had deeply understood my answers to their questions.

Then, to finish, I had them both smell individual scent notes and write down their associations – as well as choose colours to accompany them. It turned out that my niece is very connected to smells and their memories and emotions, something I would never have known were it not for our gorgeous studio session.

My niece and her friend left with a new perspective on photography and scent, and the memory of a happy, creative day together in the studio of an artist… who happens to be her aunt! And I left with a deep confirmation of how much I love to create workshops and art with and for people, according to their individual needs. Our time together opened my heart to workshops in a whole new way and reminded me that I deeply love sharing my studio for someone else’s creative needs.

Listening as a practice: Asocial Telepathic Ensemble launch

Sensory Art, Storytelling and Art Making / June 24, 2022

This week I had the pleasure of giving an artist’s talk at the The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble launch party, released by the amazing Corvo Records label at the sound art space, Errant Sound (where I was a member for many years).

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, Berlin

Being part of the event gave me the opportunity to reflect back on the Asocial Telepathic recording session which took place over a year ago — when we were in the depths of another lockdown. In doing so I realised, once again, how much listening is at the core of pretty much everything I do as an artist and practitioner, no matter which medium I choose to use.

Listening with all my senses and simultaneously translating what I perceive are at the heart of my practice… be it in creating river perfumes, encountering horses, or capturing portraits of women.

For the talk, I put together a selection of images that focus on the act of listening itself: depicting visually what can only be evoked in this silent medium.

The first image is a voice portrait of Francis Bebey, a wonderful musician and musicologist, I had the honour of encountering and listening to in 1996 at the multi-disciplinary Sura Za Africa festival in Austria – my first ever photography commission! Bebey lost his voice shortly after, making this image even more precious in later years.

street photography, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, ParisThe second is from the 2001 Langue des Signes series, a photographic research project on the visibility of sign language in Paris’ public spaces.

The third is a portrait of a deaf girl born into a hearing family. I had the honour of following her first steps into spoken language through a technique called Codali (CODage Audition Langage Intégration). The resulting project, Franchir un Seuil (To Cross A Threshold) is part of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, Berlin The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble was initiated and curated by Alessandra Eramo (sound artist, composer, and vocalist) and Brandon LaBelle (artist, writer, and theorist) during the Covid-19 lockdown of last Spring. It’s an international, collaborative work of sound culture that brings together 11 composers, sound artists, curators, writers, and performers (see below for full credits) who simultaneously switched on their recording devices on the 21st March 2021 for 15 minutes. The result was a globe-spanning, telepathic recording session, documenting thoughts, habits, and surroundings — an attempt to connect with each other. No editing was done.

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, Berlin The recording documents a historic moment in the 21st century, a very intimate glimpse into the reality of self isolation which has been experienced globally. Each recording offers a poetic approach to daily routine and deals with relatable themes such as: communicating with artificial voices, loneliness, yearning to travel, or being bored. 

But, ultimately, these artistic statements also talk about hope, transforming tragedy into irony, and accepting bodily and mental fragility — during the pandemic and beyond.

You can order the tape or listen online.

The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble are: Alessandra Eramo (voice, electronics); Ambra Pittoni (field recordings); Brandon LaBelle (field recordings); Florence Cats (field recordings, electronics); Ines Lechleitner (field recordings); Israel Martinez (field recordings, voice); James Webb (field recordings); Korhan Erel (field recordings, melodica); Lucia Udvardyova (field recordings, electronics); Ricarda Denzer (field recordings, voice); and Thea Farhadian (field recordings, violin, electronics).

ink connections

Storytelling and Art Making / September 17, 2021

Late summer greetings!

The two workshops by Lucila Kenny at WirWir Berlin on natural dyes from food waste and ink making from the plants that grow around us lead me on a wonderful journey.

I acquired new skills to experiment with in my creativity workshops and have met many interesting and skillful people here in Berlin.

It also traced a colorful paths to three women I had the chance to be and work with in past Septembers in the forest of Kent and at Mount of Oaks in Portugal in the context of the nomadic residencies by fourthland. Here are two portraits of Maya and Gail from Portugal.

While making the inks here in Berlin, images of M. writing for hours an anger script in Catalan and later reading it out aloud and burning it in the fire kept flashing up in my mind.

Following my invitation, M. has made blackberry ink near Bristol and is preparing a script yet to be traced on whereas Gail has kindly sent me one of her drawings with Walnut ink.

 

September weavings of friendship, ink and living colours

Secret Colors Hidden Within

Food & conservation, Sensory Art / September 3, 2021

Hello there,

When I first read about the practice of Lucila Kenny and her approach to natural dyes my heart skipped a beat. The way she connects the political and ethical questions with the care for the plants we find around us and the joy of creating just makes so much sense.

Yesterday I finally had the honor of participating in one of her “Making Colors with Food Waste” workshops at the amazing new project space in Neuköln WirWir run by April Gertler and Adrian Schiesser.

Here is the outcome of three recipes: red currents, yellow onion skins and red beet skins with four different fabrics:

As I work in my creativity workshops with colors, food, drawing, scent and processes of transformation, Lucila’s perspective on colors hidden within the plants in often unexpected parts is deeply moving. It shifts our perception in yet another direction and opens a new world of relations and fields of experimentation that I want to integrate more into my own workshops in the future.

For example it is the greens of the carrot that can produce a bright yellow color whereas the carrots  – staining orange on the touch while handling them – contain close to no transferable colors. A whole new field has opened and I am so looking forward to explore it with you!

I also want to share with you a related work I produced a year ago for a solo show with Hans-Jörg Mayer at after the butcher in Berlin. It was a show and a site-specific video work connecting the art works to the space and to different recipes for fermented vegetables. The plants were then fermenting in the exhibition space along side the art works and were shared with the visitors at the closing of the show.