Koo Jeong A, Odorama Cities

Of all the senses, smell is perhaps the most elusive. We cannot hold it, photograph it or preserve it in the way we preserve an image or a sound, yet it remains one of the most powerful carriers of memory. A single scent can return us instantly to a childhood home, a street we have not visited for decades, a summer evening, a train station, a forest, a market or a person we once loved. Smell moves through us differently to language. It bypasses explanation and arrives directly as feeling.

For more than three decades, Koo Jeong A has explored the invisible forces that shape our experience of the world. Working across drawing, sculpture, film, architecture, sound, light and scent, she creates works that encourage us to notice what often escapes attention. Rather than presenting fixed meanings, her practice opens spaces for reflection, inviting us to reconsider the relationship between memory, perception and place.

Odorama Cities emerges from a simple but profound question: what does a city smell like? More specifically, how do we remember the smell of the places that have shaped us? For some, it may be the scent of rain on concrete, pine forests in the mountains, sea air drifting inland, street food cooking late at night or smoke rising from winter chimneys. For others it may be impossible to describe precisely, existing instead as an atmosphere or feeling that lives somewhere between memory and imagination.

Presented across public screens in Seoul throughout September, Koo’s animations act as an invitation rather than a conclusion. Audiences are encouraged to contribute their own Smell Stories, sharing memories connected to the cities, towns and landscapes they call home. Together these individual recollections will form the basis of a new fragrance to be unveiled at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, where Koo will represent Korea at the Korean Pavilion.

The project proposes an alternative portrait of a nation. Rather than defining a place through geography, politics or borders, Odorama Cities approaches Korea through sensory memory. Thousands of personal experiences, gathered from across cities, villages and regions, become the material from which a collective identity is assembled. Through scent, places separated by distance, generation and history begin to connect.

This idea carries particular resonance on the Korean peninsula, where histories of division continue to shape contemporary life. Koo’s vision extends beyond administrative boundaries, imagining a sensory landscape that encompasses memories from both South and North Korea. The resulting work does not seek to provide a definitive picture of the nation. Instead, it reveals a living archive composed of countless individual experiences, each contributing to a larger story.

Throughout her practice, Koo has often focused on what cannot be seen. In Odorama Cities, scent becomes both medium and metaphor. Invisible yet deeply present, personal yet collective, fleeting yet unforgettable, it offers a way of thinking about belonging that is grounded not in territory but in memory. The work asks us to consider how places continue to live within us long after we have left them, and how something as intangible as smell can carry entire worlds across time.

By transforming public participation into a shared sensory artwork, Odorama Cities turns memory into material. Every submitted story becomes part of an evolving portrait of Korea, created not through official histories or monuments, but through the intimate traces of everyday life that remain with us long after everything else has changed.

Koo Jeong A is an internationally acclaimed South Korean artist whose practice explores perception, sensation and the invisible forces that shape our experience of the world. Working across sculpture, installation, architecture, drawing, film, sound and scent, she creates poetic environments that invite audiences to engage with space through intuition as much as observation. Often described as revealing the “soul” of a place, her works blur the boundaries between the material and immaterial, transforming everyday encounters into moments of discovery and contemplation.

Born in Seoul in 1967, Koo has developed a singular artistic language that combines minimal gestures with profound sensory experiences. Throughout her career she has incorporated elements such as smell, temperature, light, vibration and sound into her work, challenging conventional understandings of sculpture and installation. Whether creating intimate interventions or large-scale public projects, Koo encourages viewers to become active participants, engaging multiple senses to uncover hidden dimensions of space, memory and perception.

In 2023, Koo collaborated with CIRCA on Odorama Cities, a public commission presented across four screens in Seoul during Frieze Seoul. Broadcast nightly throughout September, the work invited audiences to share personal “Smell Stories” connected to their cities, towns and places of origin. These collective memories formed part of Koo’s wider research for the Korean Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale, where she transformed the pavilion into an immersive scent journey exploring the landscapes, histories and identities of the Korean peninsula. Extending beyond the screen and into public participation, Odorama Cities exemplified Koo’s ability to transform intangible experiences into shared cultural encounters, connecting individual memories with collective imagination through one of the most evocative human senses.

Koo’s work has been exhibited internationally at major institutions including the Venice Biennale, Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthalle Basel, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museo Tamayo and Leeum Museum of Art. Her celebrated glow-in-the-dark skateparks, immersive installations and sensory environments have established her as one of the most innovative artists working today.

Through a practice grounded in curiosity, subtlety and attentiveness, Koo Jeong A continually expands our understanding of how art can be experienced. Her works remind us that meaning is often found not only in what we see, but in what we sense, remember and feel.