Recording the Essence of Rio Carnival’s Champion Parade 2025

The energy of Rio de Janeiro’s Sambódromo during the Champion Parade is electrifying. The air is thick with music, color, and celebration as the top samba schools perform their victorious routines in a dazzling display of rhythm and passion. This year, I found myself amidst the crowd, not just to witness the spectacle but to attempt something experimental — capturing the scent of the event.

As I sat surrounded by thousands of revelers, I decided to record the background scent of the moment. Unlike the vivid visual and auditory elements of the parade, the olfactory landscape was more elusive. There was the unmistakable presence of the crowd — a mix of bodies in motion, the occasional whiff of beer, and perhaps even a faint trace of marijuana from someone nearby. But beyond these, the scent of the moment seemed intangible, blending into what I can only describe as an atmospheric neutrality.

Despite my uncertainty about whether I was truly capturing a discernible scent, I went ahead with the recording. Conceptually, the idea fascinated me — documenting an environment not through sights and sounds, but through the molecules in the air. I used a capsule filled with zeolite as my sorbent, drawing 352 liters of air through it over three minutes.

At this stage, I haven’t analyzed the recording’s quality. There’s a possibility that what I captured is too subtle to distinguish, or perhaps it contains traces of scents I wasn’t consciously aware of at the time. Either way, this experiment was an exploration of what it means to record an experience beyond what is immediately perceptible.

Whether this attempt was successful or not, it raises intriguing questions about scent preservation and memory. How much of an event’s essence can be captured in a scent? And how does scent shape our recollections of a place and time? This recording may be the first of many trials in pushing the boundaries of sensory documentation — one breath at a time.