"In Pursuit of Happiness; It Has Always Been Within" AllArtNow Lab, Stockholm, Sweden, 2022

Assisted olfactory installation. Two iron boxes, one glass box with a mirror, pure gold leaves 24 Karat, four perfume oil bottles, Pyrite stone (fool's gold), golden trickster card. Vienna, 2022. 

Life is trivial and has no quality if it depends on Happiness as a pleasurable sensation.

There are three kinds of people: the sleepy, the awakened, and those in between. People in the limbo state as not fully awakened or asleep but a bit of both. 

Happiness is psychological—associated with consciousness and not physical. Many don't care about the quality of Happiness while thinking of the physical part related to the body.

Rise higher; think of the sublime that would last longer.

Many people confuse pleasure with Happiness; they are not the same. The first is dependent on others; it is physical and rooted in the body, while the second is within and not reliant on anyone. Those who rely on pleasure will get miserable as they will keep seeking more and more because pleasure is never saturated, and the more one has, the more he wants.

A famous story of a Sufi woman in Islamic history named Rabiya lost her needle and was searching for it outside on the road. People gathered around her offering their help, asking her what is she searching for; she replied, "I lost my needle." When they asked her where exactly she lost it to be able to search easily and help her to find it. She said, "I lost the needle in my house" People laughed at her illogical answer and told her that they always felt that she was a little insane, but she continued ", Inside the house, there is no light, and on the outside, a little light is still there." People continued laughing while dispersing until she called them back, saying: "This is exactly what you are doing; I was following your example. You seek bliss in the outside world without asking the first and primary question: Where have you lost it? You have lost it inside. You are looking for it on the outside for the simple, logical reason that your senses open outward— there is a little more light. Your eyes look outward, your ears hear outward, and your hands reach outward, which is why you search outside. Otherwise, I tell you, you have not lost it there. [...] There was no need to seek and search; it has always been within."

Thinking about the story of Rabiya reminded me of how I see Happiness in life. "In Pursuit of Happiness; It Has Always Been Within", I wanted to deliver this feeling to other people through an artistic and conceptual experience we share.

Thinking about every detail in this work very carefully from inside to outside. I had to learn about perfumes, not just how it is made, to do these four phases of Happiness but more to think of it conceptually to reflect my idea. I had to do my research on Happiness and on understanding myself inside out.