It's no secret that smells can transport us to distant moments of the past, evoking them with such vividness that it feels as if we've been thrown back to that exact moment. Often, it's a peculiar scent or a combination of scents that are associated with a significant experience. We might be walking somewhere randomly and catch a whiff of a smell that, although we're not sure of its origin or source, triggers a strong memory on a molecular level. In other cases, someone might develop a particular attachment to a specific smell and intentionally bring it into their environment to recreate the feeling and atmosphere of a certain moment.

During a studio visit, a visitor asked me if there was a particular smell that I find inspiring during the creative process. I shared with them that the smell I find most transcendent is the smell of rotten apples. As a child, I grew up in a Moroccan household and shared a room with my paternal grandmother due to our small home. Initially, I didn't enjoy this arrangement and complained about not having my own room. However, I eventually grew accustomed to it. Living with my grandmother greatly improved my proficiency in the Derija language, as she would only speak to me in Moroccan Arabic dialect.

My grandmother had a peculiar habit of storing apples in our room closet. She would hide them at the back of the closet, and each time I asked her why, she gave a different answer. My mother explained that it was a survival instinct stemming from the days of hunger my grandmother experienced in Morocco during difficult periods. One of those periods was a major pandemic and the spread of diseases in the south of Morocco in the late 1940s. During that time, my grandmother tragically lost two young daughters, aged three and four, who fell ill and passed away on the same day. On hot August summer days, when the northern desert reached high temperatures, I would notice the apples in the closet. The heat and humidity inside the house caused the apples to gradually rot, filling our room with an intense, steamy aroma of rotten apples. I have learned to know my grandmother much more after she passed away, and even more when I began my research on the Judeo Amazigh community in Iligh, the village where my grandmother lived. However, the little I knew about her as a child who shared the room with her (she passed away when I was 9 years old), that little I knew and remembered, became threads of connection. One of these threads is the smell of rotten apples.