James March

An essay completed in 2016 for Design Studies on the autocannibalism of form and the infiltration of sensory mnemonics in contemporary art and design.

Which of us is not familiar with those special moments, when we are taken by surprise by a tiny sensory stimulus that evokes an intense and emotional memory of an episode from our childhood? The scent of our mother’s soap that takes us back to the familiar bathroom in the house where we grew up; or a song that takes us back to an emotional moment in our adolescent years. Once, returning home from a trip abroad, I was struck by an unknown yet familiar smell in the bathroom. The odour puzzled me; it didn’t smell especially nice or unpleasant, that wasn’t the point. Yet there was something intriguing about it. It was only after a while, perhaps after my next return from a trip, that I recognized the odour as being that of the bathroom in the stately oceanside house where my grandparents lived more than 40 years ago. At the moment of recognition I was transported in time and felt once again like the 4- or 5-year-old boy that I was in that house. I could see in my imagination the walls of the house, the water and the garden where we played, the faces of my then still young parents and grandparents. All sorts of sensory impressions came alive, drove the smell to the background and for a moment filled the decor of my youth.