Scents of Expression

The artist Kate Daudy, currently Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Institute, and Alienor Massenet, the perfumer behind some of the world’s most iconic fragrances, will discuss the power of scent as an artistic and personal medium. They will share insights at the intersection of olfactory artistry and creative practice, offering fresh perspectives on how we perceive the world through scent.

Kate Daudy is a British conceptual artist best known for her public interventions and large-scale outdoor sculptures. Working across a variety of media, she lives and works in London and has exhibited worldwide. At the Institute, Daudy is working on “Telling the Bees,” a project exploring, through an historical study of humankind’s symbiotic relationship with his environment and with bees in particular, the way we communicate with one another. Through this she will shed light on questions of faith, collective memory, and the consequences of our personal choices.

Alienor Massenet is a perfumer celebrated for her technical mastery and creative approach to fragrance creation. Trained at Cinquieme Sens, she began her career at the IFF in New York in 1995, where she developed her craft over six years and worked on her first major project, “Intuition for Man” by Estée Lauder. She joined Symrise in 2016. Massenet’s creations, include fragrances for MEMO, Lancôme, and Rabanne, among many other brands—creations that have earned her three Fragrance Foundation Awards over the course of her career.Known for her visual and geometric approach to scent composition, she draws inspiration from emotions, colors, and her favorite smells—such as warm skin under the sun, vanilla, and the Atlantic Ocean. Massenet believes this is an exciting time for perfumery and encourages a mindful, exploratory approach to discovering fragrances.