Dates

18.07.2025 / 18:00 - 20:00

Information

An Ambient Ritual of Scent, Sound, and the Body

A performative event blending elements of a music set, sauna ritual, and olfactory research. An intimate space where ambient music meets aromatherapy, where corporeality intertwines with memory, and where inner landscapes unfold through scents.

We draw inspiration from the sauna — as an archetype of cleansing, deceleration, and shared intimacy. The sauna holds warmth, sweat, wood, stillness, raw closeness. The body warms, the breath deepens, and tension leaves the body with perspiration. No words are needed. Only presence. Perception. Breath.

Yet this version of the sauna is not a classical sweat ritual. Rather, it offers a symbolic return — to oneself, to the senses, to the depth of breath. The space is heated with sound, infused with memory. The music is slow, swirling like vapor. Scents emerge quietly — herbs, resins, damp wood, moss, smoke.

These scents are not chosen randomly. They are inspired by a narrative that resonates with our time — a return to what has been repressed.

Scent as Memory, Fragrance as Return

One of the project’s inspirations was the article These scents were once erased by humans. Now they’re back. (Victoria Malloy, Atmos, 2023). It describes how the modern industrialized world suppressed, destroyed, or forgot the scents that for centuries had been part of both landscape and cultural identity. Pine resins, moist mosses, herbs, smoke — fragrances lost along with the wilderness and the rhythm of life we once shared with nature.

Yet these “lost scents” possess the power to awaken the senses once more. Not just the sense of smell, but memory, corporeality, emotion. They are invisible layers of the landscape returning through us. Traces and imprints of the past that our bodies may still recognize, even as our conscious minds have forgotten.

The sense of smell is intimate, direct, and vulnerable. It cannot be controlled by reason or bypassed with words. It is immediate and deeply connected to the limbic system — the center of emotion and memory. A single breath can unlock an entire inner world.

A Space for Togetherness and Inner Landscapes

A Scent That Remains is not only a personal meditation, but also a shared ritual. While each participant moves through their own individual experience, a collective space emerges — a silent field where trust, calm, and a sense of belonging can arise. Just as in the sauna, words are not necessary. Yet the presence of others subtly shapes the intensity of the experience. A quiet, collective energy emerges.

The music is composed specifically for this environment — primarily ambient, layered with organic textures, soft noises, voices, vocoder effects, and occasional rhythmic pulses reminiscent of a heartbeat. The scents are chosen for their natural origin, therapeutic qualities, and ability to evoke memories. They do not overwhelm but gently permeate the space.

Each ritual may differ slightly — depending on location, season, group composition, and present atmosphere. Yet the core structure remains: slowing down, breathing, silence, music, scent, presence.

For anyone seeking a space to decelerate, reconnect with the senses, and re-attune to oneself and others. For those who feel overwhelmed by a world moving too fast, with too little silence and real touch. For those who wish to perceive beyond visuals. For those who simply want to lie down, close their eyes, and breathe deeply.

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20 min / singing in English
The performance is accessible to visually impaired audiences.

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Vi Huyen Tran (1995, Prague) is a Czech-Vietnamese musician, sound designer, performer, and DJ whose work moves between experimental electronics, sound art, and ritual performance. Her practice is deeply rooted in themes of identity, second-generation experience, modern spirituality, and collective bodily experience. She approaches sound as a space where language and cultural context can dissolve — and where one can simultaneously reconnect with oneself.

In her artistic work, she merges intuitive sound work with a carefully constructed conceptual framework. In 2018, she co-founded the band VIAH, where electronic pop intersects with darker beats, layered vocals, and introspective lyrics. VIAH quickly became a distinctive voice on the Czech alternative scene, resonating particularly with younger generations sensitive to questions of cultural identity, vulnerability, and intimacy in public space.

In 2023, she presented her first solo ambient set at Lunchmeat Festival under the name dējāvi, navigating the borders of ambient, experimental club sound, and sonic ritual. Her work with vocals, synthesizers, and olfactory stimuli serves as a way to create safe environments for deceleration, breath, and a return to embodied experience. Her sets often incorporate aromatherapeutic elements — resins, herbs, and wood — which she perceives as an “invisible landscape of memory.” In public spaces, she creates settings where one can simply lie down, breathe, and be. She works with scent as an archive carrying the voice of the landscape and of ancestors.

The motif of walking backward has been a recurring symbol in her work — a gesture of return, seeking an alternative rhythm, and rejecting linear time. It is a simple yet powerful movement that holds both physical deviation from the norm and a spiritual glance backward.

Her Vietnamese roots and the experience of growing up between two cultures form the solid foundation of her creative voice. In 2023, she became the first woman of Vietnamese descent to sing the Czech national anthem on Wenceslas Square during the Concert for the Future — a gesture carrying both political and poetic meaning.

Vi is an artist who transforms boundaries into opportunities: seeking intersections rather than divisions, creating spaces rather than manifestos. Her work is quiet yet direct. Fragile yet grounded. Music, scent, movement, memory — all are interwoven layers of a single present moment, ready to be shared.

https://viah.myportfolio.com/

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photo: Veronika Hurtová, Darya Rasokhina

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