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Perfume Fountain for Humanity

A public project led by artist Anne McClain

Project Proposal

The creation of a perfume begins with a brief. For Anne’s project, that brief is to create a scent based on the experience of an act of humanity.

In September of 2009, Anne will travel to the city of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico with a group of twelve friends and perfumers and spend one week volunteering at the Casa de los Angeles, teaching art and visiting the local botanical garden at a day care center for children of single mothers. This act will serve as a tribute to a friend of Anne’s who volunteered at the Casa de los Angeles in 2003 and wrote of her experience, “I want to work with children..and do something to somehow improve their lives. I know that sometimes that means simply being 'present' to them..sharing a hug, holding them, smiling with them. We don't always have to do the big things to make a difference. If in my time of working with them I can benefit their families and the community in which they live I will be grateful.”

In Grasse, France, the capital of the perfume industry, Anne will create the Humanity scent by combining the techniques of modern perfumery and her studies in aromatherapy. Anne's intention is to use the inherent healing and transformative effects of natural plant materials to create a scent to uplift, encourage relaxation and making connections, stimulate compassion, and nurture a sense of letting go.

The Humanity scent will take the form of a fountain of perfumed water. A place of gathering often found in town squares (in Grasse, a fountain is located in the central square where the daily flower market takes place; in San Miguel de Allende the area where the fountain is located is called El Jardin), the fountain will serve as a place for communing, contemplation, and reflection. The creation of the fountain will be a collaborative effort between Anne, glass artist Alan Iwamura, and industrial designer Lance McGregor.

The fountain will be placed in a public space in New York, acting as a gathering place for people to experience the inspiration and meaning behind Humanity. The fountain is meant to transmit positive energy into the public. The question it will pose is: can good will be spread through scent?

About the Artist

Anne McClain is currently attending the Grasse Institute of Perfumery, taking courses in natural and synthetic raw materials, chemistry, and creation. She studied environmental studies, philosophy, and art at Brown University.

Anne fell into scent as an artistic medium through photography. Anne used photography in the same way she uses scents now - to flatten an experience or memory into something tangible. She also studied aromatherapy to understand the psychological effects the distillation of flowers, resins, barks, peels, leaves and other plant materials have on people.

Anne is passionate about revealing scent's power as artistic medium, and the unparalleled beauty of natural raw materials.

Artist's Past Work







Photography naturally lead Anne to scent artistry. Both mediums lend themselves to the pursuit of trying to capture moments and memories. Anne loves the dreamy, lingering quality that the memory of place can give over time. The excitement and displacement of travel leads one to an experience of being untethered. Anne likes to try and take those feelings, somewhere between illusion and reality, and to condense it, to flatten it, to create something so that she can remember what it feels like, always.




108, 2004
While spending four months living in Nepal, Anne studied with a rinpoche and was initiated into Tibetan Buddhism by a lama. This book recounts some of the insights into her spiritual practice, accompanied by photographs.




Transit/Home, 2005
For a period of a few years Anne travelled incessantly visiting Thailand, Indonesia, Baja California, Japan, and Hawaii, all the while thinking of someone she loved. They circled the globe on different paths, sometimes meeting and sometimes not. They took photographs influenced by each other and collected them into a book.




Kept, 2008
Stemming from her fascination with all things relating to memory, Anne was thinking about the phrase 'a kept woman'. She realized that not only would she most likely be keeping herself, she wanted it that way. At the time she was disappointed in love and conceived of a loverʼs gift to herself. she cut a hole through the center of a book about Paris, writing a story of lost love along the edges. In the void she placed a ring and the book became a jewelry box which she kept for herself.

Perfume - Left
Perfume - Right1

From The Artist

Perfume - Right2

Your Voice

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Wednesday
Feb182009

Inspirations for the Humanity Scent

For the scent used in the Humanity fountain, I have three sources of inspiration.  I want to take as my basis natural aromatic plants indigenous to the San Miguel de Allende region of Mexico.  The research for this will be done when us group of volunteers visits the Charco del Ingenio Botanical Garden with the children of the Casa de Los Angeles day care center.  Since this is a tribute also to my friend Bailey, I take her as a muse.  She was fair-skinned, blond, light, airy, aloof but sensitive, determined, and individualistic.    I remember her wearing daisies in her hair to the prom, and daisies always remind me of her.  I would call her a free spirit.  Lastly, the experience which we have during our week in Mexico will provide the biggest creative influence.  An experience can move one in a myriad of unexpected ways.  Will the air bestow a desert heat on our skin?  Will the children smell of clean and sickly-sweet sweat as they sit in our laps?  Will we bring them sea shells as gifts and be reminded of the sea?  Will looking at the stars at night make us feel cool and free?  

The final choices for the raw materials for the scent will then be whittled down to ensure that they impart the intended psychological effects for those experiencing the fountain (as well as, of course, smell pleasing).  My intention is for the scent to uplift, encourage relaxation and making connections, stimulate compassion, and nurture a sense of letting go.

DateFebruary 18, 2009 at 6:58 | Comment1 Comment

Reader Comments (1)

I feel very connected to this project for some reason...It seems incredibly personal but nonetheless global. While certain aspects of the project seemingly have little connection to one another (studying perfumery and mentoring/teaching small children in Mexico) a common thread lies throughout, enveloping each detail.
That said, it would be difficult to invest such a sum of money and end up with a fountain.
There is a chance, however, that this fountain could be intensely momentous, as if it were not a fountain of youth, but a fountain of memories. It seems important that somehow the children make their mark on this fountain let it be physically or through the artist. Additionally, seeing the mark of the centuries of history behind perfumery would be integral to understand the historical and social significance of scent.

May 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterGenevieve

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