Lost Luggage
SCENTED LETTER ART PROJECT 2020 - 21
Lost Luggage is a scented holiday letter I created to send to smell friends to cheer everyone up during the covid 19 pandemic.
It’s a real life mini documentary in a letter using scent, poems & printed photos, about the misadventures of a group of mostly British women on a drunken bachelorette week to Croatia in 2017.
A holiday letter you may have gotten from your grandparents or aunty before the era of Facebook.
Lost Luggage encompasses a time when we worried about simpler things.
Since the Covid 19 virus arrived in our lives, we can’t travel anymore like we used to.
If you ever lost your luggage you will remember how exasperating it is.
You may also remember the people you were with, the place you were, and everything else that wasn’t lost. So to speak.
I’m attempting to lead you to your own personal scent holiday memory bank.
WHAT does it smell like?
The luggage belt & lost Luggage area in the small Dubrovnik international airport (Croatia)
Bitter sweat & sunscreen (alcohol sugar sweats from early morning mimosas at the airport & ‘ready to hit the beach’ fake tanned tourists)
Suitcases (vinyl, jet fuel)
Musty stale air recirculated by an overworked air conditioner.
A whiff of someone just back from the restroom.
Fruity hand soap in an attempt to drown out the urinal cakes in the men’s
An overcompensated cloud of aerosol deodorant, pushy & fresh.
The smell of “ALMOST made it.” The smell of exacerbation, exhaustion, then acceptance.
The scent also has a kind of duality.
Like a lot of things in life, it depends on how you perceive it.
It’s also
The seaside with friends
Cement / old concrete beside the bay.
Warmth of new and old friendships.
Hot sea breeze
Nails done, boozy night out dancing.
Smoking in nightclubs. Borrowed bikini.
Riding the waves on a bumpy small boat next morning with a hangover.
I talk about the project here:
Airdate: Thu. August 19th, 2021 – WISH YOU WERE HERE (Ep. 14) Hosted by Minetta Rogers