Exhibitions · 2025

Light and Shadow Scent Exhibition Opens in Hanoi

Published: 14 February 2025
Language: English
Reading time: 1 min

Read this piece in Vietnamese: Đọc bằng tiếng Việt

First published in Vietnamese on 14 February 2025. Translated in 2026 and kept to the original.

Since then:

The exhibition ran until 20 February 2025 and has now closed; the invitation to ‘Register here’ at the end of the article no longer applies.

Poster for Rei Nguyen’s olfactory exhibition Light and Shadow, 14–20 February 2025, at TÁCH Spaces, Hanoi, between two introduction panels

On the evening of 13 February, the olfactory exhibition “Light and Shadow” opened at Tách Spaces, revealing a world of art in which light and shadow meet, the exhibition space like a many-layered painting of emotion seen through the lens of smell. The launch drew wide attention from art lovers across Hanoi.

The launch: memorable moments with special guests

The first to step into the world of scent of “Light and Shadow” were a group of special invited guests. Before opening to the public, the exhibition held a private launch for them: artists, influential figures in the art world and people with a passion for the art of scent.

A guest with platinum hair and a grey coat bends to read the exhibition booklet before a red velvet curtain on the opening night · Guests seated at a table lift small dropper bottles to their noses, trying each raw material at the Light and Shadow launch · Four guests pose for a photograph at the entrance to a bar, two of them holding orange R Parfums paper bags, on the exhibition’s opening night · A display table of R Parfums bottles and orange boxes beside white flowers, against a red velvet curtain at Light and Shadow · A guest with short hair, dressed in black, reads an R Parfums booklet closely under warm light before a red velvet curtain · Four glass separating funnels holding scented liquid from pale to amber, set among white flowers, one corner of the exhibition installation

A guest with platinum hair and a grey coat bends to read the exhibition booklet before a red velvet curtain on the opening night · Guests seated at a table lift small dropper bottles to their noses, trying each raw material at the Light and Shadow launch · Four guests pose for a photograph at the entrance to a bar, two of them holding orange R Parfums paper bags, on the exhibition’s opening night · A display table of R Parfums bottles and orange boxes beside white flowers, against a red velvet curtain at Light and Shadow · A guest with short hair, dressed in black, reads an R Parfums booklet closely under warm light before a red velvet curtain · Four glass separating funnels holding scented liquid from pale to amber, set among white flowers, one corner of the exhibition installation

Scent artist Rei Nguyen, the creator behind “Light and Shadow”, spoke with guests at the launch, sharing the inspiration behind each of her compositions. With “Light and Shadow”, art does not stop at the eye; through smell, it reaches the deeper layers of feeling.

First images from “Light and Shadow”

The first guests to set foot in the exhibition entered a space where scent was the language that guided them. Each composition had been placed with intent, opening doors onto feeling and inviting visitors to listen to an unseen story. Along the way, each step was at once a sensory experience and a moment of dialogue between memory, perception and the deeper reaches of the soul.

A guest wearing headphones lifts the scent to their nose among hanging sheets of handwritten text, in the exhibition’s pink-violet light · The installation: hundreds of sheets of paper suspended around a red mesh form in pink-violet light, with glass droplets hanging among them · A red card reading Shadow Éclat – Radiant Darkness, with its layers of notes and a QR code to hear the scent’s story, beside a glass droplet · A woman in glasses and headphones touches a hanging sheet of paper to read the scent’s story in the pink-violet light

A guest wearing headphones lifts the scent to their nose among hanging sheets of handwritten text, in the exhibition’s pink-violet light · The installation: hundreds of sheets of paper suspended around a red mesh form in pink-violet light, with glass droplets hanging among them · A red card reading Shadow Éclat – Radiant Darkness, with its layers of notes and a QR code to hear the scent’s story, beside a glass droplet · A woman in glasses and headphones touches a hanging sheet of paper to read the scent’s story in the pink-violet light

At “Light and Shadow”, scent becomes an invisible medium, drawing passages of light and dark across the space and the mind. The exhibition runs until 20 February 2025, welcoming art lovers who wish to explore how scent can touch the emotions. R Parfums looks forward to welcoming you at “Light and Shadow”.