Claudia Bognanni
Claudia calls herself an olfactory observer. Raised in Sicily, the bridge between the globalized culture and the Arabic ancient world, she was exposed at an early age to an explosion of scents that were essential to distinguishing seasons, harvest times, environmental and social changes. Being an observer has determined her career. She is a scientist who started working with bacteria and fungi, their bioproducts and their relationship with their niche environment. She then moved to human genetics and gene expression and finally to olfaction. Claudia has previously worked in several distinguished universities, before moving to industry, where she studies and tries to encode the human olfactory code.
With her art Claudia is trying to connect human emotions, memories, feelings and more, that is still scientifically inexplicable, with the olfactory capability of smelling. She is exploring the power of creating feelings, by making scent associated with words, touch, light, temperature and sounds that will generate different emotions, individual emotions. Through these olfactory enquiries, Claudia is exploring the power of individuality, to connect people with their surrounding, and to embrace them in equilibrium