Caitlin Hazell is a British artist and metalworker living in London. She is a graduate of the prestigious Royal College of Art (RCA London) with a degree in sculpture. In her practice, she interweaves imaginary or exaggerated aspects of everyday life with myths, folklore, and rituals. Her aim is to create new parallels of meaning for historical events as well as to invent new speculative histories for contemporary phenomena. Through her meticulous craftsmanship and clever blending of the factual with the imaginative, she creates comical yet convincing historical forgeries, which she uses as anchor points for the stories to which these objects “refer.”

For ssesi.space, Caitlin is preparing a continuation of the project The Investigation of the Nose-less Saint —an evocative tale of fictional history in which humanity has lost its sense of smell. The original project consists of cast bronze figurines and objects, drawings, sketches, clothing, a 40-page illustrated publication, and a black-and-white video stylized to evoke an unspecified period from past centuries. As the story continues, this saint finds himself on the Jundrov slope of the ssesi association, where he discovers flowers amid the ruins but is unable to perceive their scent—or perhaps their odor. The playful context of the narrative leaves room for both the artist’s and the viewer’s imagination—how do flowers in ruins smell? Do they smell at all? Why and how do they grow there, and what came before them? How can one cultivate a relationship with them without a nose—without the ability to perceive them?

The exhibition will run in parallel with the project Geology of Touch by the Viennese artists Marieluisa Lenglachner and Tereza Stehlíková. After the opening, we’ll enjoy a sauna and kombucha.