About the smell

I remember the smell of Barcelona when I first arrived, more than ten years ago. A smell that I always identify as its own, that of this city.

It is a mixture of smells, the smells of cigarettes, perfumes, humidity, history, sweat, cars, air fresheners of shops and cafés, the metro, more cigarettes, perfumes, cars, sweat, in sum the smell of city, of Barcelona, ​​then unknown to me. A smell is smelled above all when you’ve been away for a while, without smelling it; how to describe it now that I cannot smell it, since I’ve been living here for years; surrounded by it you are no longer aware, it starts to be part of you and you can’t distinguish it. But every time you come back after you’ve been somewhere else, you smell it. It is only an instant, it is impossible to retain the smell and the sensation that it gives, it vanishes, it comes and goes in concentric circles, in wavy lines, fragments that recall other fragments that take you from one association to another, an association that may be the beginning of a drawing, a photograph …

Irena van de Mheen