bharti lalwani
works
Practice
Bharti takes on an intuitive approach to her attar-style perfume oil compositions. She conceptualises fragrances that reference Indian horticulture and landscape, attuned with her diasporic sensibilities, having lived in Lagos, London and Singapore.
Bharti’s palette includes the use of natural and synthetic materials, producing scents that are traditional in style yet modern in composition. Her nose is drawn to the richness of South Indian extracts like tuberose and sandalwood, the Desi gulab (rosa moschata) and khus (vetiver) from Kannauj, a historical centre of perfume production in northern India. Her intuitive style often means her compositions evolve from batch to batch, depending on the seasons and availability of raw materials.
This dynamism in her practice, contrary to most commercial formulations, is a reflection of changing ecology, increasing pollution levels in her adopted city and the impulses that these present. Bharti’s immediate local environment is contextual to her practice, as she experiences acute seasonal allergies. Her olfactory register considers the climate catastrophes afflicting the Global South and confronts Western perfumery’s demands to self-orientalise. Only recently has the fragrance category of ‘oriental,’ historically a key part of the taxonomy of commercial fragrance development and marketing in the West, used to describe a genre of spicy, amber-y perfume, been ostracised out of common usage.
Instead of exoticism, Bharti’s practice offers both a critique of, and riposte to, notions of taste that consistently look outwards.
Bio
Bharti studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins before turning to art criticism and writing. In 2018, she established Litrahb Perfumery, turning towards scent and flavour as modes of critiquing the colonial structures and orientalising fantasies of Western noses and perfume houses.
In 2021, she launched Bagh-e Hind: Scent Translations of Mughal and Rajput garden-paintings, a research project and exhibition that explores the olfactory landscape of Mughal-era India, developed in collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Roth, scholar of early modern South Asia.
Bharti’s writing can be read here.
Exhibition history
Institute for Art and Olfaction, Los Angeles
Bagh-e Hind: Scent Translations of Mughal & Rajput Garden Paintings
Curated by Bharti Lalwani and Nicolas Roth
July 15 – August 12, 2022
Museum Rietberg, Zurich
Ragmala - Pictures for All Senses
September 20, 2024 - January 19, 2025
A Prince Having Audience
17th century
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston
17th century
Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
Denman Waldo Ross Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Boston