譚婧
Second Skin
2025-2026
Glazed paper, tissue paper, vanilla extract, tonka bean oil, patchouli oil, osmanthus oil, sandalwood oil, sage, oakmoss oil, star anise, cassia oil, Bulgarian rose oil, cinnamon, cassia, star anise, nutmeg, clove,
vanilla extract, tonka bean oil, patchouli oil, osmanthus, mixed flower pollen, sandalwood oil, sage, oakmoss oil, cement, plaster, PVA glue, and wood panel
Commissoned by 15th Shanghai Biennale
Second Skin (2025) wavers between reality and fantasy and creates a space suffused with scent and light. A curving relief wall anchors the installation while evoking a dark dance hall. Aromatic oils slowly seep through the suspended paper and transform the installation into an interface at once enclosed and porous, oscillating between the public and the private, the forbidden and the desired.
Drawing upon ancient aphrodisac recipes, Tan co-created the fragrance with a Korean scent research lab Moho Space. References from East Asian literature and olfactory culture inform my research into the materiality of smell. Tan Jing look at so-called “cosmetic perfumes” as well as “vulgar scents”—both exude sweetness and heat, functioning as projections of the female body and as figures of temptation and threat. Historically, these notes have endured condemnation, both on aesthetic and moral grounds. Tan also refer to European histories of witch-hunting, spice prohibition in convents, and the banning or demonization of certain plants.
In Second Skin, stigmatized aromas stand in kinship with marginalized groups—particularly women, elders, cultural outsiders. They are catalysts of desire and agents of non-verbal complicity, seeping across boundaries through infiltration and contagion. They awaken latent memories and yearnings, pointing toward a concealed, yet burgeoning, subversive network of knowledge.