The Water and the Wind: Incense Craft in Awaji, Japan
by Arianna Petrich
October 4 – 25, 2024
The Institute for Art and Olfaction is thrilled to welcome artist Arianna Petrich in a solo exhibition: The Water and the Wind: Incense Craft in Awaji, Japan
Opening Reception
October 4, 2024, 6pm – 8pm
at The Institute for Art and Olfaction
932 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA. 90012
Directions and parking
A piece of agarwood washed up on the island of Awaji, Japan in 595 B.C. As the story goes, this piece of driftwood arriving onshore was the first arrival of incense to Japan. The villagers fed it to the fire like it was any other wood, but the stunning aroma of the smoke that rose took them off guard. Knowing this was no ordinary thing, they presented what was left to the Imperial Court, who turned it into a statue and asked the villagers to build a shrine for it. And now, over 1400 years later, on that same beach where incense wood first touched the sand, a shrine to that legendary piece of wood stands.
In the intervening years, the port location and strong easterly winds have made the island highly suitable to incense making and drying, and it has become a production center for fine incense. Today it is said that this island produces 70% of the incense burned in Japan, and 14 incense masters, or koh-shi, are responsible for orchestrating the production using both traditional and modern processes. Their craft is passed on through generations. In January 2023, I was able to visit the island and spend some time with 8 of these incense masters walking through their workshops and factories and learning about the process from start to finish, from raw ingredients to dough to extrusion through a machine designed to make udon noodles to trimming to drying to weighing to packing.
When I asked one of the koh-shi what local ingredients from the island are used in their incense, he replied, kaze to mizu. The water and the wind.
A very special thank you to Kotaro Sugimoto, without whom this project would still be a dream.
Special thanks to Yaegaki Sake, for generously supporting the opening with RITSU, an aromatic junmai that is delightfully light and refreshing. Learn more.
PHOTOS FROM OPENING
All photos by Jenny Miyasaki
ABOUT ARIANNA PETRICH
Arianna Petrich is a Los Angeles-based visual and spatial designer and artist. As a child, she loved to light things on fire. Her fascination with incense traditions and processes of craft production has found her climbing piñon trees in New Mexico in search of fragrant resin, sampling mitti attar from the wooden chest of a fifth-generation traveling perfumer from Rajasthan, and documenting the craft of incense makers in Vietnam and Japan.
Petrich holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA from Tulane University. Her work has been exhibited in the US, Italy, and India, and is part of the permanent collection of the DePaul Art Museum.
Learn more: www.ariannapetrich.com
Photo credit: Jenny Miyasaki