GOLDIE POBLADOR – “The Perfume Bar: Collected Memories and Ephemeral Representations,” in the 2009 exhibition of thesis works at UP College of Fine Arts, Diliman
The primacy of idea is the foremost achievement of Poblador’s work. It could be installed at various scales in different venues, but eventually the arrangement will never alter the soundness of her concept. This is all the more remarkable given that this is a thesis project and that the artist is fresh out of college, still to cut her teeth when it comes to art world demands and negotiations. The idea had its beginnings in her hometown of Marikina, where she became incensed by the proliferation of shopping malls and the environmental risks of commercial development. Poblador decided to come up with her own line of ‘products,’ banking on the sense of smell as potency to retain and provoke memory.
Poblador’s installation project features scents collected along with what she herself formulated. One gets to sample these scents from bottles that she crafted from blown glass. The packaging is completed by boxes and glass cases to show off each shaped bottle. These perfumes are enticing. But wait, we draw back. What is it called? There is one of Squalor, another named Government, and you wonder what else you should smell of the Mayor’s Wife.
This perfume bar is fraught with the inescapable metaphors, taking on the corruption that wafts through every pore in society. It is, quite literally a distillation of language and memory that becomes strategic and even necessary to appeal to a collective conscience.
Notes by Karen Ocampo Flores
The primacy of idea is the foremost achievement of Poblador’s work. It could be installed at various scales in different venues, but eventually the arrangement will never alter the soundness of her concept. This is all the more remarkable given that this is a thesis project and that the artist is fresh out of college, still to cut her teeth when it comes to art world demands and negotiations. The idea had its beginnings in her hometown of Marikina, where she became incensed by the proliferation of shopping malls and the environmental risks of commercial development. Poblador decided to come up with her own line of ‘products,’ banking on the sense of smell as potency to retain and provoke memory.
Poblador’s installation project features scents collected along with what she herself formulated. One gets to sample these scents from bottles that she crafted from blown glass. The packaging is completed by boxes and glass cases to show off each shaped bottle. These perfumes are enticing. But wait, we draw back. What is it called? There is one of Squalor, another named Government, and you wonder what else you should smell of the Mayor’s Wife.
This perfume bar is fraught with the inescapable metaphors, taking on the corruption that wafts through every pore in society. It is, quite literally a distillation of language and memory that becomes strategic and even necessary to appeal to a collective conscience.
Notes by Karen Ocampo Flores
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