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site specyfic, olfactory installation 

A 12–hour olfactory installation inside the Imperial Castle (Polish: Zamek Cesarski, German: Königliches Residenzschloß) in Poznan, now Centre of Culture "Zamek". It was designed by Franz Schwechten, and its construction started in 1904. The Castle was built on the plan of an irregular polygon in the Neo-Romanesque style, considered the most German by the emperor and representing the grandeur of the Holy Empire. The new residence was supposed to confirm once and for all Greater Poland's integration with the Reich.

 

I created two olfactory installations in two representative rooms separated by a wall. One room was filled with the smell of honey, bee wax and pollen. The room had three large windows, of which the middle one was  covered with honeycomb bases and looked like a stained-glass window. The floor was polished with an invisible layer of bee wax, and another product of bees' work - pollen - was in the air. Throughout the day the only light that entered the room was through the honeycomb bases, casting golden rays onto the polished floor and the pollen that looked like dust in the air.

The other room, identitical with the first one, with panelled walls and a wooden floor, had its huge windows (that took up one whole wall on the front of the building) covered with curtains. The room was dark, with occasional sharp light getting from the outside. The room stank of ciggarette smoke and wetness.

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