Endorphin Branding™ the Arts

A new interactive exhibit opening next Sunday at California’s Oceanside Museum of Art will not only explore the fascinating connection between scent and memory known as scent branding or endorphin branding™, it will put the phenomenon into practice with the introduction of OMA, a fragrance which visitors can take home to relive their museum experience.

“The olfactory senses operate out of the oldest part of the brain,” says conceptual artist Brian Goeltzenleuchter, who developed the scent as part of his installation, Institutional Wellbeing: An Olfactory Plan for Oceanside Museum of Art . “Smell is the most memory-evoking of all our senses. We branded this with the museum so that when you smell it, it will remind you of the museum.”

The exhibit, which runs through August 9, will include a scent-based meditation room with smelling stations, a gallery showcasing photographic documents of the “Institutional Wellbeing” process, an educational station featuring interactive smelling stations, web and video works, and a reading room with literature about the project.

Goeltzenleuchter consulted with the museum staff, board members and patrons to develop the fragrance, which will be part of the exhibit and will sell in the museum store for about $20. “The top note is a sweet, green smell that immediately transitions into a warm, atmospheric tone underneath with hints of tobacco and tea,” he said. “It will bring you into a peaceful place that you will find here – introspective, a nice state of being.”

“We had to answer a questionnaire and smell a test sample, then he would push on our arm to see how we physically reacted to the scent,” says assistant museum director Danielle Susalla, who participated in the project. “He’s questioning with his conceptual work what art is and making you wonder if the new fragrance is art or a commodity.”