Fabric Book:The Scent of My Room

This project explores the sensory memory of space through a handmade zine crafted entirely from fabric. The work began with an assignment to observe and reflect on one’s immediate surroundings—my dorm room. While I initially planned to study light and spatial composition, I soon realized that what truly defined my room was its smell. Each scent carried a memory: of warmth, routine, or solitude.

The result is a fabric-based book that visualizes smell as both material and memory. Each page corresponds to a specific item in my room—tea, wood, leaves, or chocolate wrappers—each infused with a faint trace of its original scent. By combining hand painting, fabric collage, and digital printing, I translated intangible sensations into tactile form. The project became a multi-sensory diary, where color, texture, and smell work together to evoke emotion.

Creating this book was as challenging as it was rewarding. It was my first time sewing by hand, and I quickly learned how physical craftsmanship requires patience and precision. I accidentally hurt my hand several times, but through trial and repetition, I gradually developed control and rhythm. Technical challenges—such as how to preserve scent, prevent fabric decay, and bind uneven materials—pushed me to experiment with unconventional solutions, from layering scented wrappers between pages to stitching absorbent cloths that trap smell longer.

Conceptually, The Scent of My Room explores how memory and identity are anchored in sensory experience. Smell, often overlooked in visual art, became my primary language of storytelling. It carries emotion more immediately than sight or sound, bridging moments from the past with the present.

Through this process, I not only documented my personal environment but also discovered how to transform everyday materials into emotional archives. The finished piece is intimate, imperfect, and alive—an artifact that fades and evolves just like the memories it preserves.