A scent journey by Artist Devon Baur
LEMONS.
RESPONSES.
“The memory I got was a happy memory of making a lemonade stand with my friends when we were kids. It's a very happy memory and it's fairly vivid. I can remember an overall idea of the day and a giant dog one of the people had.” June 2014
“The smell of citrus reminds me of this one time I squeezed lemons to help my mom make a ceviche. I used limes instead of lemons and it wasn't as good as the previous time I'd help make ceviche. The smell makes me content and hungry. One small detail I remember is that my mom showed me an easier way to juice a lime after she saw me struggling. I was about 14.” 2017
“Summers with my mom. She would slice cucumber and put lemon, chili powder, and salt. It was my siblings and I’s favorite snack. I remember peeling cucumber, squeezing lemon and drinking the lemon juice out of a straw once we were done.” Summertime
“The lemon reminds me of making hot water and squeezing it and drinking it to be healthy. I always get excited when I can pull lemons from the trees and bring them home. When I go on walks, I get happy when my neighbors share their lemons with the neighborhood. A lemon is so bright and brings so many benefits in life.” Last week
“Growing up I was a picky eater and never had many fruits. However, when I was staying with a friend for a week he was shook when he found out I never had a cutie/orange so he gave me one to try. I remember thinking the texture was weird and that it reminded me of a gusher with the juices shooting out of it when biting into it. That was the start of a summer where I tried many different fruits and grew my palette.” June 2019
“This memory is from my first trip to Key West to visit my grandma. We went to Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe and the whole shop smelled like lime. We got to try all of the different samples and ended up with chocolate covered Key Lime Pie on a stick. That was delicious.” Sometime in Elementary School
“Oranges always remind me of my grandma because she always had them and always gives me one (to this day)!” All the Time
“The smell reminds me of the lemonade sales I had with my friends when I was younger. It’s associated with excitement because I loved having lemonade sales. The memory is pretty vivid and I can remember squeezing all the lemons.” Summer 2016
“I was shopping in Bath & Body Works the other day with my sister, for refills for a plug in wall scent, and I bought a scent called Midnight Blue Citrus. We spent about an hour smelling every single scent, to decide which two I should buy for my room.” July 2021
“I remember sitting in my first grade classroom eating oranges and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my friends. My hands were constantly sticky from the juicy oranges, and no matter how many paper towels I had to clean my hands with, they were always sticky the whole day. My old school did not have a cafeteria so all of us ate at 5 separate round tables in our main classroom. I remember not wanting to talk to anyone around me, so I picked up a book about Neptune and began staring at pictures of the weird blue planet that had a big dark spot on the side of it. I accidentally stained the book with my sticky hands.” June of 2009
“The memory that came to mind was me visiting my auntie’s house with all of my cousins. They have a lemon tree in the backyard. I got excited thinking about their backyard and the memory was very vivid. I was around 7 years old and I remember specifically throwing lemons at my cousins.” 2012
“Citrus reminds me of being in the kitchen. Not even a specific time but my mom would always take the peels of our lemons and put them in the garbage disposal in the sink so when they were sliced inside it the smell would leak into the whole kitchen. It reminds me of my childhood and makes me nostalgic.” 2014ish
“I used to have a lemon tree in my backyard when I was a kid. My grandfather would pick the lemons and make lemonade for me. This memory is very vivid to me because I would watch my grandfather squeeze the juice out of the lemon right in front of my eyes and I would be engulfed in the scent. This act of kindness through the vehicle of lemons reminds me of the feeling of love. I only have positive emotions associated with lemons.” 1998
“My favorite scent in the world is citrus. My family friends visited an international food market and kept raving about these specific oranges that they would always eat when they visited Turkey. We bought fifteen pounds of these oranges, and I ate five on the way home. I remember my uncle saying when he was a kid, he and his friends would peel the oranges right next to their eyes, to feel the sting of citrus juice, and he asked me if I wanted to try. I was petrified because, as most children do, I hated pain.” 2013
“My sister would make avocado toast for breakfast over quarantine, so when we would get up late, and if she got up not long after me, I could have some of hers. We used lemons to keep unused avocados fresh, and used them on the toast itself. Before online school was strenuous and highly regulated, it was a relaxing and fun hands-on experience.” April/May 2020
SMEMORY.
THEATER.
Smemory Theater is a short film that offers an abstraction of the survey results melded with personal experience. The narrative explores the gaps in memory that emerge from anosmia.