In tribute to the prestigious exchanges of know-how between China and France, which are celebrating their 60 years of diplomatic relations in 2024, Francis Kurkdjian imagines Sparks of roses, an artistic and olfactory installation combining two of the materials he loves the most, both originating from China: the rose and porcelain.

To bring these two elements together, Francis Kurkdjian recalled his encounters with the porcelain of the Manufacture de Sèvres. Fascinated by the craftsmen's know-how, he worked alongside them to take on a technical challenge: developing a porcelain that could accommodate his perfumes. For Sparks of roses, he ordered 300 petals from the Manufacture, hand-shaped from a specific paste, made porous and therefore perfumeable thanks to firing at 1050°C.

The queen of flowers, the rose lets itself be tamed by the perfume creator who plays with its multiple olfactory notes. It occupies a very special place for Francis Kurkdjian and his Maison de Création, since 2014 in the homage to femininity of the eau de parfum À la rose, then in 2020 in l’Homme À la rose, its masculine version. In Sparks of roses, it is offered a new form of expression, artistic this time, with a perfume created to measure to impregnate the precious porcelain petals. Francis Kurkdjian fragments the olfactory structure to extract the light, delicate and sensual facets, guided by the desire to reproduce the silky sensation of the powdery porcelain and the airy aspect of the installation.

With the complicity of artistic director Cyril Teste and scenographer Nina Chalot, Francis Kurkdjian magnifies these petals by reconstituting porcelain roses, delicately mounted on brushed brass stems. These mineral flowers are arranged along a path reminiscent of an imaginary Silk Road, made of kaolin, an essential raw material for making porcelain. A few petals seem to fly away under the effect of the wind and time, an impression transcribed by a play of lights, an augmented reality device and music by Yannick Kalfayan that reinforce the visitor's immersion.

Sparks of roses is unveiled for the first time to the general public from November 8 to 10, 2024 on the occasion of the West Bund Art & Design in Shanghai, the most prestigious contemporary art fair in China.