“I am the _____.” opening reception
"I am the _____." opening reception
January 6, 2018
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

The Institute for Art and Olfaction
932 Chung King Road, Los Angeles CA 90012


Opening Reception

I am the _____. marks the Institute for Art and Olfaction’s second project with artist Joe Merrell.

The exhibition features animation, 3d projection, print, sculpture, as well as two custom scents created in collaboration with the IOA.

Inspired and informed by readings in environmental philosophy, 19th-century science fiction (e.g. Journey to the Center of the Earth, Etidhorpa), and legends of the Algonquian windigo, Merrell’s work explores the notion of the natural, physical world as a metaphorical map of human consciousness.

In the animated video Prisoner’s Cinema, Merrell alternates between hallucinatory abstraction and symbolic illustrations of the windigo mythos, drawing from later native depictions of the creature as a western man ushering physical and cultural destruction. A small forest diorama, Beware the Windigo, includes a scent component designed to evoke the primal, visceral aspects of wilderness.

A series of works based on fragments of a nonexistent hollow earth narrative are installed in the darkened side gallery — including prints, a 3D stereoscopic video, as well as specially-scented phosphorescent “fruit” from the center of the earth.


932 Chung King Road, Los Angeles CA 90012

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