Artist, Haegue Yang: My name is Haegue Yang. Sallim is a Korean word. Could be translated in English, approximately like “housekeeping.”
Learning Specialist, Marco Hermosillo-McCune: This is a three-dimensional artwork, and it’s asking us to walk around it, to look into it. It looks like a structure, but it has no walls. I see lights, and I see a fan, but I also see these other gadgets. Where would this space exist?
Haegue Yang: It is a skeleton of a kitchen. There are fans, and there are small boxes that represent the water boiler. There are also a radiator, the kitchen shelves, and the sink.
Marco Hermosillo-McCune: As I keep exploring, I also notice that this sculpture includes a machine that releases smells at random. It cycles through scents like apple pie, coffee, bread, and even vomit.
Haegue Yang: I realized smell affects us physically, but also there is different associations and memories. Let’s take one smell, which is burning smell. Someone might associate something very tragic. Someone else might associate the burning smell with something cozy, such as a campfire.
Marco Hermosillo-McCune: Our society can also shape how we think and feel about certain smells. Here’s neuroscientist, Dr. Rachel Herz.
Neuroscientist, Dr. Rachel Herz: The part of the brain that processes emotion and the part of the brain where we experience awareness of scent is exactly the same. Anytime we experience a scent, we also experience emotion, at least at some level. And that has to do with what the culture has taught us about various scents.
For instance, is the scent of rosewater part of food that you eat, or is the scent of rose purely something that you would smell if someone gave you a flower bouquet or something that was potentially in perfume?
Marco Hermosillo-McCune: Think of a smell that has a particular association for you. In what ways do you think your society influenced the meaning of that scent?