Hybridizing Scents of Home
In a diaspora there is an inherent hybridization formed between the culture of the homeland and the host country, where displaced people spend their lives. Most of the Palestinians interviewed for this research have lived in Qatar for the majority of their lives. They have inevitably acquired some Qatari cultural traits, which have become a part of their own identity. My second thesis research outcome celebrates this fusion of Palestinian and Qatari culture.
Mashmoom is an indigenous plant in Qatar, traditionally used to produce a perfume oil, which Qatari women apply to their hair. It is popular with young Qatari women, who associate its scent with fond memories of family matriarchs. The following story and ritual emerged from the Qatari rituals workshop during the Doha Palestine Cinema Festival. A woman participating in the workshop told the story of her grandmother dipping her finger into an oil bottle filled with mashmoom, and then running her finger through her hair. The woman’s late grandmother left her the bottle when she died, and the woman now uses it to perform this inherited ritual.
In my family of Palestinians exiled from Jaffa, we have inherited our grandmother’s memory of the scent of oranges. When I smell oranges, the scent elicits my grandmother’s stories of Jaffa and the connection it held, for her, with Palestine.
Combining these two narratives—of my grandmother’s fondness for the scent of oranges and the Qatari grandmother’s ritual use of mashmoom oil, I designed a ceramic vessel to contain the combined scents of mashmoom and oranges. The ceramic is slightly porous—by design—and a small amount of oil seeps through, allowing the scent to emanate. The patina that builds up over time, as the oil slowly seeps, is a metaphor for the luster of inherited affinity
The formal qualities of the perfume bottle draw from traditional monuments. Like a temple on a stone plinth, the perfume bottle sits, securely elevated, on a matching ceramic dish, which is designed to collect the precious oil, as it seeps through the porous ceramic container.
A blue glass comb plugs into the top of the bottle. The comb is used to apply a few drops of oil to the hair. The resulting project monumentalizes the ritual application of scented oil, which carries the scents of two fused cultural traditions, threading together the three pillars of memory, place and identity.
