HIV home remedy
“HIV Home remedy” is a chemistry experiment verifying the outcome of the mixing of two fluids: skunk gland extracts versus tomato juice. It is believed tomato juice removes skunk stench. Inspired by this popular belief, and how these two fluids have potential positive and negative effects in relation to the human body, the installation serves as a negative space representing an invisible stain/disease (HIV), but also shifts sensorial hierarchies. How does the brain function when the sense of smell is the only mean to determine if the experiment is successful or not? And how this experience can create awareness and associations with time, space, body and feelings to the viewer when a new smell is encountered? HIV Home Remedy is an immersive conceptual artwork that explores stigma, contamination, and the persistence of social perception through the lens of olfactory experience.
The piece uses a novel scent to activate the viewer’s primitive olfactory memory, eliciting instinctual, emotional reactions before the intellect intervenes. Once inhaled, the scent cannot be expelled, creating a tangible sense of inescapable contamination.
This physical experience parallels the invisible but persistent stigma associated with HIV, making viewers viscerally aware of how social judgments attach to individuals. The title references the literal “home remedy” for a skunk attack — a tomato juice bath — creating a layered pun that bridges everyday physical experience with social and emotional commentary.
Through this multi-sensory approach, the work transforms abstract social concepts into embodied, immediate perception, prompting reflection on empathy, memory, and the inescapable traces of social bias.
2016 (CUAA) Fine Arts Grand Prize Award https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/cunews/offices/vpaer/aar/2016/06/14/a-shock-to-the-senses.html
