Fragrance house

Agar Olfactory

Agar Olfactory is a Chicago-based fragrance project by Chilean olfactory artist Agustine Zegers, who also directs Speculative Scent Lab. Its earliest documented fragrance edition is Bit Bit, dated 2021. Fragrance functions here as a wearable olfactory tool: each work is linked to a particular year or speculative timeline and directs attention toward ecological change and possible future states. Bit Bit evokes the 2021 COVID-19 isolation scenario through bitter-green plant imagery and longing for vegetation during quarantine, while Cero imagines the Y2K technological collapse of 1999 through associations with overheated computers, hot wires, and plastic. The wider practice extends into critical-olfaction education and interdisciplinary scent work. In 2024, Zegers’s exhibition (d)olor atemporal connected ancient seabeds, petroleum extraction, and plastic manufacturing through scent and sculptural installations; in 2025, Speculative Scent Lab offered a workshop examining ecology, politics, colonialism, and the social uses of fragrance.