Christelle Boulé Opens Up About Her Collaboration with Francis Kurkdjian

Canadian-Swiss photographer Christelle Boulé explores what we feel but cannot see – smell, taste, memory. Drawn to perfume as a material, she developed a way to translate scent into image, which led to Expanded Drops, an exhibition created in collaboration with Francis Kurkdjian.

Where does your fascination with perfume come from?

I was 25 when I moved from Montreal to Switzerland, and it’s at that point that I started to smell a lot of perfume, with people wearing it much more than when I was growing up in Canada. At first, it was quite difficult for me because I was more used to smelling nature. It felt very intense and overwhelming.

But after a while, I got used to it, and I started to wonder what my first perfume could be, because I had never worn perfume before. So I went into different stores and discovered smaller brands where I could really focus on the scent, not the bottle.

And I became really obsessed with perfume. So when I had to choose a subject for my graduation project, it was obvious – perfume. I wanted to work around how to photograph a smell and how to visually approach something invisible.

I started making experiments in the darkroom by spraying perfume on photographic paper and exposing it to light. That’s when I was able to develop a photo using perfume. I continued these experiments during my master’s at ECAL in Lausanne.

That’s really how my artistic work around perfume started.

Expanded Drops // Christelle Boulé

How did the collaboration with Francis Kurkdjian happen, and where does the name “Expanded Drops” come from?

A friend of mine suggested that I contact Francis Kurkdjian. I didn’t believe he would answer because he’s such a big name, but I sent him an email with a small PDF of my work.

Two hours later, he replied.

After that, we met in Paris. I showed him my diploma project – a series of photographs and a book – and I explained that I was working around perfume, trying to visually represent something invisible. And he said: we have to make a collaboration together.

Then I met him again with Marc Chaya, and they gave me perfumes from the Maison. They said, let’s create a series where I photograph all the perfumes and build exhibitions together.

The name Expanded Drops comes from my first project Drops. At the beginning, the photos were small, and I liked that intimacy – you had to come very close, like smelling perfume on someone’s neck.

With this collaboration, I wanted to expand the size of the images. I used large photographic paper and even emptied entire bottles onto it.

So “Expanded” refers both to the scale of the images and to expanding the research, pushing it further.

What was it like to work with Francis Kurkdjian?

The process was really a conversation, and he never tried to tell me what to do or how to do it.

Most of the time, he would ask: “What do you want? What do you need, Christelle?” And sometimes, I would simply say: I need perfume.

Then I would go into the darkroom and create the images. The way it works is that I use drops of perfume on silver gelatin paper in the dark. When the paper is exposed to light, it creates chemical reactions that reveal amazing, unexpected shapes and colors.

For example, when working on Baccarat Rouge 540, I created a series of 10 to 15 photos in shades of red.

After that, I would go to his office with all the images, and we would look at them together. We discussed which ones were stronger, which ones I preferred, which ones he preferred, and we made a selection to build the final series.

It was a very free process. He gave me a lot of space to work. At certain points, we met, we discussed, we agreed on what worked, and then I continued in that direction.

It was really a conversation.

What inspires you beyond perfume?

Flowers, nature, even food. I also explore emotions – how to photograph something invisible, like a scent, a memory, or a feeling. For example, I created a series inspired by food I loved as a child, based on the smells and memories of dishes my family used to cook.

 And what was this favorite dish?

Rice pudding. My mom used to make it, and I loved the smell. Or apple pies in the oven.

This interested me because smell is strongly connected to memory. Sometimes I smell something and immediately think of my childhood.

That was the idea behind that series, which I called Delicate, inspired by delicatessens – family places with comforting food.