Smell is one of those senses that connects people across perceptual and communication boundaries. It can evoke memories from long ago and bring places to mind. In analysing perception across the boundaries of sight and hearing, he connected the sighted, the non-sighted, the hearing and the non-hearing in the search for a description of the conscious perception of the environment that immediately surrounds, guides and directs us.
Accompanying the sound project Sonic Projections by artist Bill Fontana, a group of people with and without hearing and visual impairments worked together as specialists to research perceptions and experiences in urban space as part of the Kultur inklusiv cooperation project and, on the basis of their research, recruited artist Heribert Friedl (* 1969 Feldbach, lives in Vienna) to realise their experiences. Friedl, whose "non-visual objects" repeatedly deal with smell as a material for sculptural and performative experiences, designed an expressive series of posters in which Braille is given equal weight with printed text.
As the multilingual result of a joint odour and perception walk through Graz, the individual posters are poetic-abstract impulses to create images in the mind and to observe others doing the same. At the same time, the multilingualism also points to a breadth of perception that expands beyond our own habits and enriches us precisely through the change of perspective.
The series can be found, read and felt on the façades of the Kunsthaus, the Graz Academy, the Odilieninstitut, the Graz Museum and the University of Art Graz. It invites us to engage with other perspectives and to observe perception as a treasure in constant growth and change.
