Olfactory Readings by Susan Barbour
Reserve your spot today. Only 3 available!
People lined up for hours the last time artist Susan Barbour gave olfactory readings. homeLA Benefit guests have the opportunity to book a private reading with no wait! Find out more below and reserve your spot.
Watch Barbour’s TEDx talk: I Smell Human
Each one of us possesses a unique, dynamic human perfume that corresponds to our DNA as well as shifts in mood, diet, lifestyle, and intentions. In this unforgettable one-on-one experience, participants have their armpit "read" and their body's chemical messengers decoded by clairsentient artist Susan Barbour.
For homeLA's 10 Year Benefit, Susan Barbour will conduct 3 individual "readings" of the natural human perfume of your armpit's apocrine glands. Drawing on qualitative data collected in her performance piece "I Smell Human," she deciphers how your aroma fits within the fascinating range of human chemotypes and will demonstrate your key olfactory facets using a lab of liquid aroma materials. You will leave with vials of your olfactory facets as well as insights about what your body’s signature aroma is communicating to others—all the time, under the radar—empowering you to harness the power of your natural human perfume.
Please wear no aluminum-based deodorant product days before the event and, if possible, no deodorant on the day of the event.
Private reserved readings are $100. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity.
Be the first to reserve your spot by clicking the link below.
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About Susan Barbour
Susan Barbour is a poet, scholar, visual artist, wine expert, and perfumer whose creative practice explores subtle forms of human connection. Through human body odor workshops, performance art pieces, and “scent walks” through endangered ecosystems around the world, Barbour’s recent work invites us to reclaim the hidden power of our innate olfactory intelligence. She also creates bespoke perfumes designed to enhance—rather than disguise—the body’s natural musk. A self-taught visual artist who began as an artists’ model, Barbour has exhibited her experimental hair drawings, intaglio prints, and neon nudes at museums and galleries in LA, New York City, and Europe. As an author of poetry, essays, scholarship, and a forthcoming novel, she forges new literary forms to explore possibilities for meaning-making in the wake of loss and in the context of turbo-capitalism. Barbour holds a B.A. from Dartmouth, an M.F.A. from Johns Hopkins in Poetry, and a D.Phil. in English Literature from Oxford. She also holds the Level 4 Diploma from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust and is a certified French Wine Scholar. She has been the recipient of fellowships from The Beinecke Library at Yale, The Bogliasco Foundation, The Dora Maar House/Brown Foundation, The Huntington Library, The Jentel Artist Residency, The Rothermere American Studies Institute, The Siena Art Institute, Castello di Potentino, and The Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles. She has lectured at Johns Hopkins, École Polytechnique, and Merton College, Oxford and held research positions at Columbia University and Caltech. She currently divides her time between New York City and LA. @susanbarbourartist
