This Summer, ICA LA’s Agency of Assets youth fellows held job positions at 11 esteemed cultural organizations and businesses in Los Angeles: ICA LA; Feminist Center for Creative Work; La Plaza de Cultura y Artes; Self Help Graphics & Art; EQT; Everybody.World; The Box; dublab; Heidi Duckler Dance; Latinx with Plants; and Echo X Park Artist Studio. In an exercise of focused awareness, each youth fellow paid close attention to the scents of their workplaces and chose one representative aromatic note of their experience. In collaboration with the Institute of Art and Olfaction and its founder Saskia Wilson-Brown, the youth fellows learned the process of perfumery and explored concepts for creating scent-based exhibitions.

Each aromatic note is presented in the Annex exhibition titled AoA x IAO: I Smell LA. Visitors are invited to smell the chosen scents for each organization as well as a final perfume composed from all notes for an olfactory portrait of Los Angeles’ unique cultural arts sector.