Inside this cold and impeccably clean box are four warm eggs which float in a circle. The eggs float behind a transparent image whose smell is barely perceived, like a soft fresh breeze. The image is a photograph of a pregnant belly with hands that hold it above and below.

In the synaesthesia that this piece produces, the main smell that is perceived is the smell of newness, clean yet at the same time warm, because it alludes to the babies that will be born of this gestation. The smell of a newborn baby makes adults want to hug it and protect it. In turn, when a baby is born, its relationship with the world is almost completely dependent on the sense of smell. As Daphne and Charles Maurer say in their book World of the Newborn:

‘His world smells to him much as our world smells to us, but he does not perceive odors as coming through his nose alone. He hears odors, and sees odors, and feels them too. His world is a melee of pungent aromas — and pungent sounds, and bitter-smelling sounds, and sweet-smelling sights, and sour-smelling pressures against the skin. If we could visit the newborn’s world, we would think ourselves inside a hallucinogenic perfumery.’

In the piece Gestation the four eggs make reference to the life that is being created, to the factory of humanity, and for me this smell of clean warm creation awakens a feeling of hope and protection.

Carmen Mariscal