For Norwegian-born Sissel Tolaas, smell is a vital yet often overlooked tool for communication, and one she has been exploring through her work for more than three decades. She has devoted her research-based artistic practice to the olfactory rather than the visual or the auditory, thereby appealing to a different type of sensory experience with her projects. As Tolaas has noted, “My nose is more advanced than my eyes.”

The exhibition RE_, as in remember, reveal, revive, regrowth, etc., is the largest presentation to date of Tolaas’s work. It exemplifies the breadth of her complex yet highly direct and intuitive artistic practice. All of the works on display are site-specific, developed or reworked especially for this exhibition. The ICA’s architecture, its physical setting, and geographical context are all closely scrutinized, raising questions large and small in the process: What is change? What is hidden beneath the building’s surface? How do scared people smell? How do we capture a single breath? What smells characterize a nation?

This exhibition is organized by Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo and curated by Solveig Øvstebø, Executive Director and Chief Curator. The presentation here has been specially configured for the ICA, and is organized with Zoë Ryan, Daniel W. Dietrich, II Director.