A COFFEE AND A PERFUME
Smelling to rebuild
The method: “A coffee and a perfume” is intended to facilitate, through olfactory stimulation, the reconstruction of one’s own identity and self-esteem after experiencing traumatic events.
The context: A never-ending day.
The pogroms of October 7, 2023 shocked Israeli society and the international community. Five thousand years of history seem to have been reduced to dust in a matter of hours, heralding a long and painful struggle between obscurantism and the world of light and freedom.
Observation:
Millions of people suffer from post-traumatic disorders. Rooted in the day of the massacres, terrorism victims live in a never-ending day from which it is difficult to extract them.
“You will not have my hatred,”
an open letter from Antoine Leiris after the death of his wife at the Bataclan on November 13, 2015.
The “A coffee and a perfume ” method invites to a journey into the past in search of happy and foundational memories of one’s own history by smelling different fragrant compositions around a coffee.
This immersion in moments of happiness experienced and felt through olfactory stimulation is shared during collective or individual olfactory workshops in the presence of an olfactotherapist.
Memories are recounted orally and also through writing, drawing, as well as through the choice of music, intensity, and color of light, among other means of expression.
Events from the past resurface in less than a second, reclaiming their place as a secure and warm foundation conducive to the reconstruction of one’s own identity and self-esteem. This fertile ground allows one to rediscover their roots and resume the construction of their future according to their own values and not those imposed by the enemies of life.
