I hustle at Olfactory Art Keller after being delayed on the metro. I have an appointment at noon for a one-on-one performance with multidisciplinary performance artist CHOKRA. I’m already embarrassed because I’m not wearing white as requested, but I’m from LA and didn’t pack the right colors in my carry-on. I walk through the gallery’s purple doors 15 minutes late, wondering if I completely missed our 14-minute ritual. But all that stress melts away as my senses are filled with the earthy scent of oud, one of the rarest perfume ingredients in the world.
the Chokras Oud: Awaken to well-being is an intimate ceremony inspired by mixed ancestry and artist rituals. CHOKRA, who identifies as non-binary and queer, left her home in the United Arab Emirates to express her identity more freely. This led them to Southeast Asia, where they learned how to extract resin from Aquilaria trees. The substance, oud, escapes from trees when they are infected, healing the tree. Oud is a traumatic response to pain. This corresponds to CHOKRA’s turn towards art, healing his past with the joy of self-expression.
During the ceremony, CHOKRA begins by setting intentions and waving incense charcoal to purify us. We move to a low table for a kodo ceremony, a fragrant Japanese ritual that uses incense to awaken spirituality. CHOKRA burns a shard of Aquilaria tree bark and invites me to take a deep breath. I remember sesame seeds. I am asked to sip hot tea and taste a date, and the olfactory profile of the oud changes. It becomes more umami with tea, sweeter with dates.
As CHOKRA guides me through the ceremony, they place a dish of oud oil on a small board. Nestled within a bright blue square on the minimalist canvas is a gold foil square. The pigment has been mixed with oud oil before being applied to the canvas, which leaves small brown freckles on the surface. CHOKRA created a painting for each day of their performance. At the end of the exhibition and the performances, each painting will be covered with gold leaf and wrapped in a string which will have been saturated with oud oil during one of the individual sessions. The paintings, integrated into each performance, are imbued with our intentions.
From the humble setting, I wouldn’t have known the oud was so precious. Luxury brands have taken advantage of this, adding the ingredient to expensive perfumes, ripping it out of its cultural history. CHOKRA says a drop of oud is more valuable than gold. Attending this ceremony introduced me to the original purpose of the oud as a sacred healing tool that helps recover from illness, mentally and physically. By combining different oud rituals from their own cultural background, such as performing a Japanese kodo ceremony prepared with Indian Assam tea and using Oud Cambodi (the rarest type of oud, harvested in Cambodia), CHOKRA shows how Resin united their mixed heritage, which often made them a target of discrimination. But in Awaken to well-beingthese divisions dissolve into a holistic experience with healing at its core.
Oud: Awaken to well-being continues at Olfactory Art Keller (25A Henry Street, Chinatown, Manhattan) through March 12. Tickets are available online.
