Swiss Air for SALE, 2025(olfactory installation)
Swiss Air for SALE is an olfactory installation that critiques the historical and ongoing commodification of nature and the enduring link between smell, hygiene, and social inequality.
The work draws on the legacy of 19th-century miasmatic medical theories, when “bad air” (miasma) from decay and urban waste was believed to cause disease. Doctors often prescribed cold, dry mountain air to strengthen the lungs and “disinfect” the body. The Swiss Alps became a destination for climatic health treatment (Luftkurort), filled with sanatoriums where the elite could receive treatment. The deodorized air of the Alps was a privilege only the wealthy could afford, turning these Alpine sanatoriums into a rarefied bubble of privilege and illness. These clinics, later were repurposed into air and sun therapy (heliotherapy) clinics and later into luxury hotels and spas, preserving their association with exclusivity and bodily purification.
In today’s wellness economy, Switzerland remains a symbol of purity and exclusivity, where even something as fundamental as air is sold as a luxury. Swiss Air for SALE hijacks this narrative, packaging the myth of purity into literal cans of "Alpine air," borrowing marketing taglines from Swiss luxury brands, diamond retailers, private banks, even military suppliers. The work functions as an “aeroscape” that satirizes both the absurdity of hyper-capitalism and the persistent myth that sanitized, “pure” air is inherently superior—a belief still used to justify spatial and social hierarchies.
By reclaiming air both as medium and message, the work reveals how smell has long been politicized, from 19th-century medical ideologies to contemporary systems of control and exclusion.
*Supported by the Culture Department of Valais, Switzerland (Service de la Culture de l'Etat du Valais)