Gulab & Mitti: A Deep Dive into Indian Attars, with Giti Datt (in person)

In the latest lecture in our Olfactory Research Notes series, the IAO is thrilled to welcome scholar Giti Datt for a lecture covering her recent research into the history of Attar-making in India. Olfactory Research Notes is a lecture series that presents important research done in olfaction, directly from the scientists, academics and researchers who do it.

In this talk at the Institute for Art and Olfaction, Giti Datt shares her ethnographic research on the Indian attar (perfume oil) industry. We’ll explore the life cycle of attar - from farms to distilleries, manufacturers, retailers and beyond - while smelling these rare and precious oils. We’ll dive deeper into two of India’s most romanticised, and least understood, attars: gulab (rosa damascene) and mitti (petrichor), which are the focus of Giti’s current research.

While gulab evokes royal connotations, the smell of wet earth is universally enjoyed as the onset of monsoon. Both are still distilled using natural aromatics and heritage techniques, and continue to attract dedicated patrons who value these scents for their medicinal, devotional, aesthetic and artisanal qualities.

About Giti Datt

Giti is a PhD candidate at the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific. Her research project involves an ethnographic study of the life cycle of Indian attar (perfume oil), in order to better understand the contemporary significance of this material to the people who make, buy and use it. Giti's motivation for this project stems from her work as a perfumer, having worked with attars and natural aromatics for close to a decade, as well as her work in the not-for-profit sector, which focused on grassroots community settings.

Host or Publisher The Institute for Art and Olfaction