Welcome to the Institute for Art and Olfaction! We’re a non-profit devoted to access and experimentation in the field of perfumery. This page details some of our educational programs. If you’re looking for cultural programming or our gallery, check the menu at the top of this webpage.
HERE TO LEARN?
While our mission is complex and our programs are diverse, our core belief is that all people have a right to engage in the historic and deeply cultural practice of working with scent. We’re devoted to open access in education, and have a dogma-free approach to teaching. We believe that there is no right or wrong way to engage in the historical field of perfumery, as long as you are being respectful, safe, and – of course – responsible.
We are currently operating in a hybrid online / in-person capacity – with a rich roster of online classes supplemented by small in-person sessions, art openings and more. We anticipate adding more in person sessions, but we will also keep our online programming. To sign up, visit our calendar of events and click the link below each class listing. That will take you to our eventbrite page where you can register.
If you’re new to the IAO, we recommend starting with:
+ Open Session (in-person, with IAO staff)
+ Perfume 101 (in-person or online, with Minetta Rogers)
+ Experimental Perfumery with Atlas Obscura (with Saskia Wilson-Brown)
You can see the full range of our classes in the menu above, or on this page. If you don’t see your desired class on the schedule, send us an email at hello@artandolfaction.com and we’ll let you know when we’re planning the next one.
+ Check the upcoming schedule here
OUR VALUES
While our teachers come from diverse backgrounds and life-views, we all share a dedication to the IAO’s core values.
CULTURAL OPENNESS:
The IAO is committed to access, experimentation, and cultural multiplicity in our approach to teaching and knowledge sharing.
LEARNING THROUGH PRACTICE:
We believe in learning based on direct experience of the materials.
SELF-DIRECTION:
Excellence is not attained by adherence to normative external factors, but by a sense of personal accomplishment and joy in our own process and goals.
FACTS WITHOUT DOGMA:
We want to teach about all the educational, material and supplier options available to a given practitioner, and encourage them to make informed choices that are in line with their own internal compass.
FREE SPIRITS:
We want to encourage a free-spirited, self-directed approach to the medium, where participants gain a sense of agency as perfumers and a life-long confidence about their capacities.
TOUGH LOVE:
We want to cultivate a space where participants are pushed to their best possible capacities, through direct, honest critique.
ROOTED IN REAL LIFE:
We aim to provide participants with a realistic but optimistic understanding of the multiple paths available to perfumers, with a focus on independent and experimental practices, without neglecting the industry.
HISTORIC ACCURACY:
Perfumery has been practiced in many cultures through time. The IAO is rooted in the recognition of scent cultures and value systems that represent the full complexity of human work with scent.
OUR “BE COOL” POLICY
Being cool means respecting the work of your peers, the agency of your instructors, and acknowledging the years of practice and learning that inform our instructors’ knowledge. Actions that are not cool include taking our instructors’ materials and teaching them as your own, copying handouts without attribution, distributing private videos without permission, or making hurtful comments in our chat rooms.
Being cool also means being respectful of the teachers’ time and teaching materials. The IAO’s educational mission is to create confidence and knowledge in our community, and empower attendees to develop their own assets and information bank. We obviously welcome and encourage knowledge-sharing, but our teachers should have a say in how their information is disseminated. As such, their teaching material (including screen shots, videos, or shared documents) should not be shared beyond the class, unless expressly permitted via email, and credited to the teacher. As a matter of policy – and with occasional pre-arranged exceptions – we do not share our instructors’ slide shows, teaching materials or PDFs. We do, however, make the recorded classes available for review for 7 days after each class takes place.
MATERIALS
Many of our online classes have recommended materials, which we send to you before class in the Eventbrite confirmation email. You are responsible for buying your materials, and we have put together a handy list of suppliers, which you can find here. All our classes – unless otherwise noted – engage in the full range of available perfume materials, including naturals, synthetics, and etc. We choose to teach in this way because we believe that having full access to knowledge will empower our participants to make informed decisions about their own practices. If you are looking for naturals-only education, please consult our map of educators to find curriculum appropriate to your desires.
Useful lab tools for new practices:
Pipettes
Scent Strips
15ml bottles (for your materials in solution) + dropper tops
Solvents for making lab solutions
A scale (we recommend the MyWeigh iBalance 101 as a starter scale)
A NOTE ABOUT ONLINE CLASSES
All of our teachers are independent perfumers or academics who are sharing information that they have gleaned from their individual practices. Please respect our teacher’s agency and do not share the information they provide in their classes without their express written permission. Likewise, we do not allow dissemination of screenshots or recordings of – or handouts from – our classes without express written consent.
When you sign up for an online class with the IAO, you will often get important information in the confirmation email from Eventbrite, including materials lists and more. Please be sure to scroll down through the entire confirmation email!
We send Zoom log in information between 24-48 hours before the class. We send this from hello@artandolfaction.com. Make sure to add that email to your address book so it doesn’t go to spam.
Although we prefer you attend in person, we do share videos for 7 days after each online class, unless otherwise stated.