From scents to senses: an aromatherapist’s journey to becoming installation artist

Haley Alexander van Oosten has a background in fragrances, and her contribution to a Hong Kong art exhibition on Typhoon Mangkhut’s aftermath reflects this

She has filled atomisers with scents from objects and plant matter collected after the 2018 storm, which visitors can use to create unique scents

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Haley Alexander van Oosten, founder of L’Oeil du Vert, has created an art installation with a difference at the Asia Society in Hong Kong: a collection of aromas.

Published: 3:00pm, 2 Sep 2019Updated: 7:31pm, 2 Sep 2019

“When you create something that cannot be seen, no one knows how to interact with it. My installation work is about reconnecting to nature using one of our most important senses,” explains Haley Alexander van Oosten, one of the artists featured in the Asia Society Hong Kong chapter’s latest exhibition, “To See the Forests and the Trees”, which explores the ecological devastation caused by 2018’s Typhoon Mangkhut.

Van Oosten’s installation, The Ripening of Mangosteen: A Scent Offering in Fragments, is markedly different to the others featured in the exhibition. Visitors won’t see a physical artwork; instead they are led into a chamber where they can play with several atomisers filled with essences extracted from seaweed, charred seashells and firewood, calamansi and white flowers, incense woods and uprooted mangroves that were collected from the village of Shek O on the southeastern coast of Hong Kong Island after the typhoon.

“It’s an ecological way of creating art. The idea is for people to turn on and off the diffusers to create a scent that actually ripens as the exhibition continues. I want them to reconnect to the intangible and the power of nature,” says Van Oosten, who will host a talk and scent lab on September 5 and September 6 respectively.

To call the Los Angeles native a perfumer would be misleading, although she did start her career creating customised scents for the Hollywood elite almost 15 years ago. As a student of Japanese literature, she became fascinated with fragrance, and the cultural traditions and rituals that surround it. In her early twenties she experienced personal health problems which led her to explore different healing methods including essential oils.

Van Oosten’s installation The Ripening of Mangosteen: A Scent Offering in Fragments.

“One thing I have never been is a perfumer. I am not part of that tradition, because I haven’t studied chemicals. I trained as an aromatherapist and started doing botanical blends for people.