Impadia
LA TEMPÊTE
BDK PARFUMS x JÉRÉMY PRADIER-JEAUNEAU
From September 9 to October 4, 2026
The Centre des monuments nationaux invites artist Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau for a monumental exhibition throughout the Arc de Triomphe. This immersive journey offers a contemporary reinterpretation of this emblematic site, revealing its history and architecture through an unprecedented lens, that of the artist. Jeremy introduces a childhood memory at the heart of the monument as a disruptive element within official History.
As part of this artistic and sensory journey, BDK Parfums imagines an olfactory experience in collaboration with Dominique Ropion, Master Perfumer at IFF. Conceived as an extension of the journey, this olfactory creation accompanies the exhibition and evolves throughout the monument's various stages, between memory, matter, and emotion.
From fashion to contemporary art, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau blends different means of expression, proving himself to be a truly multidisciplinary artist.
JÉRÉMY PRADIER-JEAUNEAU
For several years, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau has been developing a singular body of work at the crossroads of several disciplines. With this carte blanche within an iconic monument, he asserts a personal and ambitious gesture: showing the intimate as a force for change.
La Tempête is an art exhibition in its own right, imagined by the artist: more than thirty monumental pieces, created with skilled artisans. All engage in dialogue through unprecedented collaborations, from fashion to contemporary art, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau blends different means of expression, proving himself to be a truly multidisciplinary artist.
JÉRÉMY PRADIER-JEAUNEAU
For several years, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau has been developing a singular body of work at the crossroads of several disciplines. With this carte blanche within an iconic monument, he asserts a personal and ambitious gesture: showing the intimate as a force for change.
La Tempête is an art exhibition in its own right, imagined by the artist: more than thirty monumental pieces, created with skilled artisans. All engage in dialogue through unprecedented collaborations, from fashion to contemporary art, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau blends different means of expression, proving himself to be a truly multidisciplinary artist.
When art meets fragrance. When two personal stories give rise to a collective work.
Within Maison BDK Parfums, every creation is born from an encounter. Since its founding in 2016, the Parisian creative Studio has approached perfumery as an ongoing dialogue between disciplines, perspectives, and sensibilities. Here, fragrance is never conceived alone: it is built through exchange, through shared emotion, through interpreted matter. Creation is, above all, a collective adventure.
With the La Tempête exhibition project, David Benedek and Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau come together around a shared sensibility: that of intimacy and transmission, where a maternal figure holds a discreet yet foundational place in both their respective journeys.
From their personal paths emerges a shared vision: one of a creation that connects memory, matter, and artistic expression. The encounter with Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau then feels only natural, as an extension of the same quest for meaning and new territories of creation.
"As an artist, Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau embodies a new generation of French creators at the crossroads of art, installation, and fine craftsmanship. He has this ability to draw upon and nourish himself with a plurality of skills, creators, and exceptional artisans to create and reimagine spaces beyond time," explains David Benedek.
With La Tempête, he signs an immersive journey that offers a contemporary reinterpretation of this emblematic site. He imagines a sensitive crossing leading to a suspended garden, guided by the myth of the Rose de Sainte Rita, where each space marks a stage and a transformation. The works thus transform the monument's rooms into sensory environments: textile surfaces, sculptural structures, displaced domestic objects, organic or architectural forms, sound compositions, and olfactory journeys accompany the visit.
La Tempête is conceived as a total experience, inviting visitors to question the void as a space for creation, introspection, and renewal, or when the intimate meets the collective.
To give shape to this vision, David Benedek surrounds himself with Dominique Ropion.
Among the most celebrated Master Perfumers, he is admired for his work with floral materials and his singular way of interpreting the rose, which he shapes with precision, depth, and modernity. A natural choice for this project structured around the Rose de Sainte Rita, a myth according to which a rose is said to have bloomed in the depths of winter, shortly before her death, a symbol of a miracle born from the impossible, and a beauty risen from adversity. "Dominique Ropion is not only a great perfumer but also an exceptional technician. There is something truly monumental in his work, much like the Arc de Triomphe itself," notes David Benedek.
Together, they compose a creation conceived as an invisible thread, in constant resonance with the journey imagined by Jérémy Pradier-Jeauneau.
From this six-handed encounter between design, artistic direction, and perfumery was born a shared language, the origin of this olfactory work.
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ENTRESOL - A mineral gust erupts around a damp, rocky vetiver, crossed by the peppery brightness of pink peppercorn and the aromatic freshness of juniper berry. The rain-soaked breath of petrichor mingles with the smoky accents of cypriol and cedarwood, leaving behind the trail of earth battered by the elements.
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ATTIQUE JARDIN DES PALMES - Vetiver comes alive with an untamed vegetal energy, where tart rhubarb and vibrant spices create a perpetual sense of movement. Between aromatic freshness, the rooty nuances of iris and the woody depth of patchouli, the landscape seems to reinvent itself from one moment to the next.
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ATTIQUE GALERIE DES ARTS - Vetiver gradually leaves the earth behind to open up to light, carried by orange blossom and a luminous solar accord. Warm spices and cypriol extend its telluric grounding, while this gentle radiance gradually transforms the raw material into a garden in full metamorphosis.
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SALLE DES PALMES - A majestic rose emerges from an icy breath of bergamot and pink peppercorn, like a flower rising from the heart of a landscape still covered in frost. The green facets of blackcurrant bud and geranium meet the depth of vetiver and white musks, allowing an architectural rose, pure and luminous, to radiate. Used here in unprecedented proportions, Turkish rose essence and absolute give the composition its monumental and sensual dimension.
INTERVIEW WITH DOMINIQUE ROPION
MASTER PERFUMER, IFF
How did this olfactory construction come together, between artistic intention and the choice of materials? Could you describe its final version and how the notes appear and interact with one another?
Very early on, two poles emerged. On one side, the storm, and immediately, the idea of vetiver, powerful, mineral, almost rocky at times. Its damp, earthy character conveys the idea of the storm, of raw matter, of the landscape before its transformation. On the other side, the rose, used in almost monumental proportions to accompany the final room. I didn't want a decorative or illustrative rose, but a rose in majesty, capable of occupying the space like an architectural presence. Between these two extremes lies a space of transition. That's where the fragrance truly comes alive. The initial elements remain present, but they enter a state of effervescence. The vegetal facets, the greener or more floral nuances, intertwine and continuously recompose themselves. I don't see this structure as a classic succession of top, heart, and base notes. I prefer to think of it as an organic evolution, where each material progressively changes state, like a fantastical garden in perpetual transformation.
Did creating this fragrance require a different approach than a project responding to a more classic brief?
Yes, the approach was different. In a classic project, the fragrance generally exists for itself. Here, it had to engage in dialogue with a space, a narrative, and a visual experience. I had to think in terms of storytelling and progression. I've often felt that a fragrance should take the person wearing it from point A to point B. In this project, that idea became central. The fragrance doesn't describe a state, it accompanies a transformation. This isn't the first time I've worked on a narrative construction, but rarely so explicitly. The exhibition offers the chance to make visible what we often try to do invisibly in perfumery: creating emotion through movement, giving rise to a story through the metamorphosis of materials. That's precisely what made this experience so exciting.