A children’s workshop at the Musée des Alpilles

During the winter holidays, I had the pleasure of conducting a perfume creation workshop for children at the Musée des Alpilles in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (France).

During the preparatory visit for this workshop, I had the pleasure of discovering the essential role that the museum plays in maintaining the memory of activities linked to this territory.

One artwork particularly caught my attention during this stroll. It is a painting from 1876 entitled Chapel of Our Lady of Piety in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence painted by Jean-Roch Isnard, a painter from Arles.

It was chosen to serve as inspiration for the perfume creation workshop. Back at my atelier, I selected 10 olfactory ingredients.

• the almond, fruit of the tree that adorns this street
• the straw on which the chickens are perched
• the tobacco leaf to evoke the tobacco trade
• wet earth to illustrate the dirt street
• incense widely used in the chapel
• the honey here evokes the origin of the construction of the chapel following the Great Plague. At that time, doctors claimed to act as a barrier to this disease with aromatic plants and honey carried directly on oneself in pomanders.
• mint, one of the ingredients of the famous Chiarini wormer made in the warehouse whose name we can see on a shop front
• Violet and musk illustrate the scents that were very fashionable at the time and that could very well have been used by these ladies who are walking.

On the afternoon of March 1st, I met 10 little perfumers ready to learn about perfumery in a fun way, and to create their own perfume inspired by a view of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence from the 19th century.

After a quick presentation of my practice combining perfumery and photography, I announced the programme to them.

The first step of the workshop consisted of smelling together each of the ingredients made available to them and expressing the memories and sensations that they evoke for them and writing them down on the formulation sheet.

Once all the ingredients were smelled, it was time to choose which materials to use in their creation, and to define which one should be stronger. Once the formula was written, it was time to move on to counting the drops of their formula in a small bottle.

Once the weighing was complete, I smelt with them their creation, and we discussed possible modifications for test 2. And so on until test 3.

Once the 3 tests were completed, each child chose the favorite test which I weighed with my precision scale in a 15ml bottle that to take home as a souvenir.

I really like these children's workshops. They are always very enthusiastic. And they are proud to show their creations to their families.