Exhibitions · 2025

Light and Shadow: A New Artistic Chapter in Hanoi

Published: 6 February 2025
Language: English
Reading time: 2 min

Read this piece in Vietnamese: Đọc bằng tiếng Việt

First published in Vietnamese on 6 February 2025. Translated in 2026 and kept to the original.

Since then:

The “Light and Shadow” exhibition at Tách Spaces, Hanoi (February 2025) and the “A Letter to Self” writing competition have ended; the 50 ml Shadow Éclat prize is no longer open to entries.

A visitor stands among hundreds of paper letters suspended beneath a warm red light, an installation at the scent exhibition

After the exhibition’s success in Ho Chi Minh City, “Letter from 221B Baker Street: Scents of Shadow” continues its olfactory journey in Hanoi under an entirely new name, “Light and Shadow”, at Tách Spaces, bringing much that is fresh and distinctive. The exhibition will not only bring back the scents that made their mark in Saigon, but will also add new creations, promising something altogether different.

Scents old and new

In the Hanoi exhibition, olfactory works such as London Fog, Depict “The Sign of Four” and The Reichenbach Falls will appear once more, drawing visitors into a dialogue between light and shadow, good and evil, told in the language of scent. A complex inner world, with its contradictions and its unease about human nature, is expressed through installations made with clear intent. Through the figures of Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty, “Light and Shadow” sets out to show the oppositions, the ceaseless tug-of-war between reason and instinct, righteousness and temptation, in the search for the self.

A board headed ‘Scents at the exhibition’: the Sherlock Holmes room with 221B and London Fog; the Moriarty room with Shadow Éclat and Reichenbach

New creations made for the scent exhibition in Hanoi

Yet the Hanoi chapter will not stop there. This time the exhibition will bring new scent creations, conceived to continue and extend the theme of light and shadow. They are being kept under wraps, a gift reserved for those willing to step into the exhibition.

Each new scent will be a different story and a different depth of feeling, designed to lead visitors across the line between reality and imagination, light and shadow.

Something new: the “A Letter to Self” writing competition

Alongside the exhibition in Hanoi, R Parfums is pleased to introduce the writing competition “A Letter to Self”. It is a chance to take a quiet moment and hold a deeper conversation with yourself. Writing to the past: send a letter to the person you were five years ago, sharing what you never had the chance to say and the lessons your own path has taught you. A message to the future: imagine yourself ten years from now, and leave that person your hopes and dreams, or even a few affectionate reminders from the present. The finest story will receive a 50 ml bottle of Shadow Éclat — the newest scent creation from R Parfums.

A new chapter, full of feeling

“Light and Shadow” in Hanoi is a place to enjoy scent, and also somewhere to find yourself again through each story and each feeling breathed into every trail of fragrance. Every scent and every letter is a bridge that brings you closer to the deepest and truest part of yourself. Let “Light and Shadow” in Hanoi become a new chapter in your own story of art and feeling, where refinement is felt in each moment: never hurried or showy, but lingering and full of meaning.

Crafting feeling with scents like no other

Here, visitors step into the perfumer’s world, among raw materials chosen by the artist Rei Nguyen: making a scent as an expression of feeling and spirit, true to the character of “Light and Shadow”.