Madame Rochas does time...travelling, as the Perfume Stories workshops go "inside"

HMP Liverpool - Source: Wikimedia Commons ~ Rodhullandemu

Back in December 2019, in that innocent twilight period just before the pandemic, I attended a workshop in the "Perfume Stories" series at The Tate gallery in Liverpool. This was the brainchild of Michael O'Shaughnessy, a senior lecturer in Graphic Design and Illustration at the Liverpool School of Art & Design at John Moores University, and a perfumista zealot on the side. The original programme of workshops was attended by final year students on his course, followed by an assortment of other fragrance lovers like me, who happened to get wind of the event. My rather long and meandering blog post about that day may be found here. (NB This one is also going to be on the long side!)

Here is Mike speaking about the alchemy of scent, and its power to take us back to other times and places:

"Some are childhood memories, but others are more complex...I never quite bought into the Dr Who thing when I was a kid, but this is time travelling."

Selfie by Michael O'Shaughnessy

During his residency at The Tate, the Perfume Stories workshops came to the attention of the Operational Lead for Creative Arts & Enrichment at Novus, a provider of a variety of educational content within prisons. Together they conceived of how to adapt Mike's sessions for inmates, using fragrance as a means to effect change, and promote learning and rehabilitation. 

Mike readily admits that before embarking on this venture he grappled in his own mind with its moral complexity, given the gravity of some of the offences for which inmates had been incarcerated. Eventually though, the vast majority of prisoners return to normal life, so he figured that it makes sense to try to turn their lives around while they are still inside, rather than have prison serve as "a finishing school for supercriminals".

Mike also felt he had the interpersonal skills to be able to strike up a rapport with the prisoners; an academic by profession, in his spare time he enjoys open water swimming, and mixes with people from all walks of life, including teachers, ex-boxers, and even some ex-cons. ;)

"Hey, working with students is just as challenging!"

As regards the pedagogical aim of the project, Mike hoped that the workshops would put offenders on a new path to learning, by offering a more inclusive and composite approach that combined Graphic Design, Literature, Science and Olfaction. He wanted to tap into inmates' scent memories, and thereby challenge perceived ideas around literacy amongst groups who - as he delicately put it - "may have had an uneven relationship with education". 

Image by Michael O'Shaughnessy

Thus it was that in February 2020, just before the Covid shutters came down, Mike ran a three hour pilot workshop with two small groups of four 'mainstream' prisoners in HMP Liverpool, known locally as Walton prison. Ahead of his arrival, word got around that "The Perfume Man" was coming to visit.

Prisons typically hold weekly Recreation & Education sessions, and inmates sign up to do a particular educational activity. 

"With me it has always been a weird sell, because they don't quite know what it is."   

People mostly opted into the Perfume Stories sessions because they were inquisitive, though Mike told me of one case later in the project where a group of younger prisoners were instructed to take part by prison staff.

A concern Mike had about the viability of the project was that prisoners might have lost their sense of smell, or not be able to rely upon it at any given moment, say. This is because the olfactory mechanism stops working when people are under great stress, a fact of which I was unaware, though I am not drawn to wearing perfume when I feel on edge. Mike discussed this potential issue with a prisoner at Walton, who confirmed that it does indeed occur, typically when people are kept in a holding cell after their arrest. Once they are either charged or released, however, their sense of smell returns. (Prisoners taking part in later sessions also attested to this phenomenon of temporary anosmia.)

"The Time Travellers" by Michael O'Shaughnessy

The format of the session was similar to that described in my blog post: Mike would introduce literary references to perfume, explain some of the science behind how smell works, and give the participants individual scent strips to smell with the question: "What does it make you think of?", whereupon the inmates would write down their thoughts and share them with the group.

"You ask them what it makes you think of, what it reminds you of, and it will always get you, it will always catch them."

Mike deliberately chose six complex fragrances with a lot of depth to them, including some high end luxury scents. He avoided strong masculine fragrances, but rather went for a more feminine or unisex vibe, which explains why my vintage bottle of Madame Rochas from the 1960's made the cut. 

HMP Liverpool ~ Photo by Michael O'Shaughnessy

The response to the pilot overall was positive: the stories people told were based on their own individual experiences and memories, often involving grandparents and matriarchal figures from childhood.

And then of course Covid struck, and the project was put on hold. In early 2021, Mike worked with his opposite number at Novus on an alternative way to deliver the sessions - still in Walton, but with a different category of 'vulnerable' prisoners, who for a variety of reasons would not fare well in the main cohort of the jail.

An explanatory DVD was developed, and sets put together of 5-letter coded blotters in sealed airtight packaging. The material was issued to participants about a fortnight before Mike's visit in May 2021. They were lent DVD players so they could watch the DVDs in their cells, as well as smelling the scents in their own time, rather than back to back, as was the case in the pilot, which was felt to be a bit much by some. Mike also supplied visual aids in the form of an A3 folding worksheet with directions, literary references, and some facts about perfume, together with graphics and diagrams.

These were later pared back and simplified following feedback from the groups attending this round of Perfume Stories. Some of the information was removed, more space created for people to use for their own notes and stories, and the phrase "Time Travellers" introduced. 

"They obviously didn't do what I asked them to do, because they just basically went through all the scents!"

"The other thing that I think is important for them to feel is...there's an element of rehabilitation - if they've got a stake in the process, that has value."

Because of Covid restrictions, Mike had to talk to prisoners individually on the wing with the door open to their cells - in what was a noisy setting with harsh lighting and while he was wearing a mask(!). He told me he was simultaneously processing the environment of the prison in his own mind and the conversations with the inmates, with whom he conducted four separate sessions, a week apart (one initial trial, followed by three with the same people).

Walton Prison ~ Source: Liverpool Echo

Here are a few reactions to the project:

"Mental escapism, the project translates you far beyond the prison walls."

"It held my attention, unusual, unique, interesting - different from any other education in here"

"Smell isn't just in the nose, it's an all over body experience."

Escapism and positive memories were commonly reported, putting participants in a calmer, more reflective mood.

And here are some of their comments about how exactly the scents spoke to them:

"The rusty dry smell you get in Autumn."

"I'll always remember the smell of my dear old Nan, I just hope she's in a better place now dancing away with Elvis & John Wayne two of her favourite people in the whole world."

"The moment I first detected the scent, I pictured myself standing on a shore with huge waves crashing onto the beach. I can't fully explain this image but it seems to be similar to a day in September 1988 when, aged 23 I stood on the beach at Aberystwyth looking out to sea day dreaming. The colour that came to mind, not unexpectedly, was light blue."

Following the success of the workshops in HMP Liverpool, Novus invited Mike to extend them to HMP Hindley near Wigan, using the tweaked material. HMP Hindley is a Category C prison with a mix of age groups, where Mike spent four weeks working with four groups spread over sixteen visits: one initial trial, two groups with 'recovery' prisoners (ie those who had committed crimes linked to substance abuse), and one with young offenders. He found that overall the process worked best with men over 30, who had clocked up more life experience, and hence had a greater store of scent memories to tap into.

It was at HMP Hindley that my bottle of Mme Rochas was deployed! - sprayed onto the coded scent strips, obviously. It was in the first group Mike held with five older men. I asked him what they made of it:

"The aldehydes are the one thing I do tell them about...the aldehydes are like that supercharged fizz that gets them, and that's got it. Some of the really classic perfumes with the aldehydes are the ones which take them right back to different places they didn't expect to be taken back to."

And here are the thoughts of a prisoner at HMP Hindley known as D, inspired by his scent sampling:

The more I can Imagine my future – the greater the possibility. 

What does my future smell like ? 

Does the world have a place for me 

The past was how I remembered it 

How I experienced it. It taught me how to feel 

I experience now through the mirror of the past. 

How I respond to the past effects my future.

HMP Hindley ~ Source: Manchester Evening News

Speaking more generally about the workshops, Mike added that top end rose-based perfumes were found to be very evocative.

"Anything with rose...a lot of the high quality perfumes that are more nuanced, so you'll get a direct reaction to one thing and an indirect reaction to something else in there."

Lavender and vanilla notes were also major triggers to scent memories.

"Anything that has got a base of lavender or vanilla in it, anything with vanilla in it - and most of that period of smells will have that - that gets them. Vanilla is probably the one ubiquitous thing which will always take them back to a particular place, partly due to the ubiquity of vanilla in different products. So it will be normally a matriarchal experience of bathroom soap - that's a really good one, and it is like a light going on for them."

Mike also singled out Chanel Les Exclusifs Cuir de Russie for special mention, because of the sheer variety of associations it prompted:

"It's so strange, because the links are so personal: I mean a newsagent's shop, or it could be a mosque,or it could be - you know, the inside of a cupboard."

Source: Manchester Evening News

In the next phase of his project, Mike was asked to carry out his workshops with prisoners at HMP Buckley Hall, near Rochdale. It is a facility for mostly long term inmates, who tend to be settled in a routine and more relaxed. The prison's Educational Facilitator had worked at Selfridge's and knew a lot about perfume(!), so she was keen to introduce the activity there. The environment was very conducive to conversation, and there was less churn in those attending the groups - a degree of which is inevitable in prisons, as people get moved on or released. As Mike observed: 

"It is better when there is more consistency - same environment, same guys."

I asked Mike whether over the course of his time visiting jails he had ever felt apprehensive about being in such close contact with criminals. He said not, because he was someone from outside the justice system and not an authority figure of any kind. 

"They really liked me: I'm part education, but I'm not part of the Education wing, I'm not part of the prison. Also, I'm not being marked on it, I'm not being assessed - they're really okay with me...I'm always treated as like an exotic thing."

"I move between the academic world and the prison world. My colleagues are always thinking I am going to be killed or have boiling water thrown at my face, or [redacted!]...They will attack another prisoner, they will attack an officer if they bear a grudge, but they are not going to attack a stranger. It's a myth. So I never feel uncomfortable or vulnerable - I'm quite relaxed about it. I do enjoy it."

Moreover, over the course of the project Mike gained a lot of experience about the types of characters who are in prison, what their "stories" are, and what makes them tick. He did concede though that the whole dynamic would probably have been very different had he been a woman... 

Mike has now been invited to take his Perfume Stories back to Buckley Hall in April or May of this year, where Madame Rochas will be having another outing. It might be a bit of a stretch to imagine that perfume therapy with inmates on its own could dramatically reduce the recidivism rate on their release, but the promising response so far to Mike's work certainly gives me hope... 

 

Portraits of a Lady: 'Perfume Stories in Conversation' at Tate Liverpool, 19.12.19

First things first...yesterday's date is pleasingly symmetrical, if not exactly palindromic like the page views tally in my last post. Yet even had it not been symmetrical - never mind palindromic - yesterday was a hugely enjoyable day, for a number of coincidences occurred and paths were crossed, in unexpected ways. And this despite the fact that my day started preternaturally early again - in darkness, no less. Who knew that mornings can be like the middle of the night in December?? Too many years spent around musicians and their unsociable body clocks has given me an aversion - nay, allergy - to any hour earlier than 8.30am.

I got up at this time as I was due to attend a talk on perfume at John Moores University, which strangely doesn't have an apostrophe. I infer that this is because the university is merely named after the distinguished businessman in question who founded the Littlewoods retail chain and football pools, rather than being in any way 'possessed' by him.

I travelled on a pleasingly fast train to Liverpool operated by Avanti, which it took me till mid-afternoon to realise is the company who took over from Virgin the other week. It only stopped at Runcorn, and then sadly at the railway station, not half way across the famous wrought iron bridge so I could have taken a better picture. The bridge has several names, including 'Ethelfleda', which is so good I wish I at least had a chicken to call it after. Next week's (albeit dead) turkey may briefly acquire this moniker instead...

Now don't laugh, but I brought my A-Z of Liverpool with me, which dates from 1990, the year when I stayed at the Adelphi Hotel (of Onedin Line fame) and had the use of a company 'pool' mobile phone the size of a brick. I'll be honest, I navigated in the end using a combination of helpful tourist signage and the blue dot on Google maps, but it felt good to have the A-Z as back up. A bit like shopping with a wicker basket.

I arrived at Albert Dock a little early, and took a quick snap of this doughnut van with its transatlantic spelling and tempting offer of candyfloss and 'slush'. That's what you get I expect if you drop your candyfloss in the Mersey. Parked a little further on was a double decker London bus offering tea and coffee; an old telephone box next to it had been repurposed as a milk and sugar station. You don't get that sort of vintage charm in Starbucks, even if they do offer milk in different fat percentages.

The talk was held upstairs at Tate Liverpool, in a section of a big gallery space screened off by a curtain - not all the way, mind, so at various points during proceedings other visitors threw us a quizzical look as they were passing in their search for Dali's Lobster Telephone. I say 'search', as I am not sure that any of the 11 lobsters Dali made is in Liverpool anymore. My mobile phone from 1990 was not far off in size if not shape, now I think of it.

So, on to the event itself: Perfume Stories in Conversation (Alchemy, Olfaction and Synaesthesia), created and hosted by Michael O'Shaughnessy. Mike is Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design & Illustration at Liverpool School of Art & Design at John Moores University. He began his talk by playing a song by Barry White(!), which proved a good ice breaker, and was at pains to point out that perfume is about so much more than the art of seduction (despite what the glossy, gold-dipped adverts would tell us). He gave us a bit of background on his own academic research and commercial art, including several high profile commissions, such as a billboard featuring his own handwriting that formed the skin of the Everyman building.

Source: moshaughnessy.co.uk

The structure remained in place for 18 months, and miraculously didn't get 'tagged' in all that time by graffiti artists, which Mike attributed to his 'inclusive' use of cursive writing, which looked a bit like graffiti to start with. He adopted a similar approach on a project for Dong Energy, a Danish company which installed 32 wind turbines in Liverpool Bay, and his billboard with the caption "This Beautiful Place" was similarly left intact. Regular readers may recall that I am a big fan of wind farms, having done a project on glue in California, some of which is used to fix rattling nacelles, as the big 'gubbins housings' at the top are called.

To seal his credentials, Mike mentioned that he had in fact swum the Mersey, which impressed us all no end. So by this point I was definitely sold on Mike's handwriting and level of fitness, and we moved onto the key premise of his event, namely a "proposition of multi-sensory experience in Art":

"We experience drawing in the same way that smell can provide a trigger for memory and sensation. Scent invites us to recount and create new stories, sharing and revealing layers of experience." 

After romping through a few surprise facts about our sense of smell, including the one about it remaining when we are asleep (something the ex-firefighter in our group was able to confirm!), Mike presented us with a selection of evocative quotes about perfume from literature. One, from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, featured bitter almonds reminding a character in the book of the fate of unrequited love. It was a great quote, and reminded me in turn of my happily morbid teenage years engrossed in Agatha Christie novels, where death by the chemically closely related cyanide was a go-to MO. But better still, we also learnt that Mike had been commissioned to do a portrait of Marquez, whom he decided to dress as a fish, in a nod to another work by the author, in case you were wondering(!).

We had already started to discuss what scenes different scents and smells evoke in our minds, and at this point Mike passed around a blotter sprayed with Chanel Cuir de Russie. This was a rather spooky moment for me, as I had so nearly chosen Cuir de Russie as my SOTD - to the point of holding the mini in my hand for a moment or two before putting it back in the drawer - however, I ended up opting for the more public space-appropriate and sadly discontinued Guerlain Plus Que Jamais.

Mike also showed us a book he had had published on Perfume and Drawing: it comprised a series of portraits of ladies - mostly but not exclusively his niece, I think? - juxtaposed with a list of perfumes containing a particular fragrance material, followed by a literary quote. At this point Mike disclosed that A Portrait of a Lady, or PoaL as it is commonly known in the blogosphere, was his all-time favourite perfume! This happens to be the favourite of Val the Cookie Queen, who has kept me supplied with both PoaL and CdR. I have an abiding memory of Val lavishly applying PoaL in an underground car park in Augsburg, before we went into a Monochrome Set gig at a nearby club. So I guess I have a memory link between that fragrance and music and perfume friends. And although I am not sure it works on me, I am a big admirer of PoaL, which I first smelt not on skin, but sprayed on Katie Puckrik's pashmina, which she was using as the garment equivalent of a room diffuser. Another strong memory, this time linking the scent to perfume friends - and fabric!

Mike went on to tell us about workshops he had run with his art students, giving them perfumes to smell blind and seeing how they reacted and what specific associations they had with the scents. (He is a big pusher of perfume / evangelist, and I salute him for it.) We did a bit of that too and the reactions from our group to the perfume Mike had selected were all over the map, and not uniformly positive. One lady was reminded of the dentist, another had no particular associations but didn't care for it, while I could pick up fruity notes, but ones that had been spoilt or muddied by something indeterminate that might have been spices or herbs. I shan't say what the perfume was, or what it was meant to smell like, in case anyone gets the opportunity to attend one of Mike's workshops or talks, but let's just say it was pretty left field in its inspiration!

There was more...Mike mentioned a thought provoking quote by Siri Hustvedt, speaking of the artist Morandi. Oddly, I have just read The Summer Without Men by her - not to be confused with the iPhone application of the same name - and used to have a Morandi print over my bed two houses ago. I think ex-Mr Bonkers must have won custody of it. Mike also referenced Mikhail Bulgarov's Master & Margarita, which is sitting in one of my many tsundokus, as is the Marquez book indeed.

After the talk, which all of us didn't want to end(!), I repaired to the cafe with Mike and a lecturer colleague of his whose speciality is textiles and fashion, to carry on the conversation. I did take a full body photo of Mike during the talk, but he preferred this off-duty one in which he feels he comes across as more jolly. I told him that he looks a bit like my Graphic Design lecturer friend Simon - the one who lives on a narrow boat and finds room in his tiny fridge to store his perfumes - crossed with a more exuberant and charismatic version of Jeremy Corbyn. I added that Mike could give Jeremy lessons in being more animated / genial / zealous /generally 'up'. I don't suppose it would  have helped him win the election if he had also swum the Mersey, but JC definitely has a charm deficit, while Mike has it in spades. Like wind energy - and unlike perfume - charm can't readily be stored for someone else to use...

You may well ask how I came to hear of this event, and the short answer is through my indie singer songwriter friend Jessica - she of the enviably smooth and high forehead, and somewhat protracted but happily successful rose perfume quest. Jessica knows Mike, but the connection is more with a relative of hers from a long time ago. So that was another coincidence.

Anyway, I could have chatted to the pair all afternoon, but suddenly realised the time, and Mike said I would need to get a move on to stand a chance of catching my train. He had not reckoned with my ability to deploy high intensity spurts of scurrying, mind (my own version of HIIT training, if you will), and I made the train with ten minutes to spare, including a stop at a market stall to buy a pair of the cheapest and most badly made pyjamas on the planet. At £6 though you can't go wrong, even if you do end up spending more time snipping off the stray ends of cotton than sleeping.

On my way back I spied this curious sign for a 'Genting Casino'. I had no idea that 'genting' was a verb, and have a strong suspicion it has very little to do with the kind of behaviour I might consider 'gentlemanly'...

PS The concept of scent and synaesthesia took me back to the event hosted by Le Labo which I wrote up in a guest post on Cafleurbon, where they got us to feel different textiles and say which one went with a particular scent. I bet that is an exercise Mike's colleague would have been brilliant at!

A Rembrandt portrait, with bonus tantalising glimpses of M's desktop folders!