WITHChristmas may be associated with the scents of oranges and mince pies, but the rest of the year our cities and towns also boast special scents. Now one researcher is publishing an atlas in an attempt to capture these bizarre “smellscapes.”
Dr Kate McLean-Mackenzie, a designer and researcher at the University of Kent, said she first became intrigued by the sense of smell 15 years ago.
“I realized there was a huge gap in that we communicate what we see – and we can record it and share it through Instagram, photograph and sketch – and we can record and share sounds digitally. But there was virtually no way to record and communicate smell,” she said.
As a result, McLean-Mackenzie began mapping “smell landscapes” in different places, including many cities around the world.
To do this, participants are asked to take a “smell walk” outside, recording not only what they smell, but also its intensity and duration, whether it is unexpected, whether they like it or not, and any associations the smell evokes.
“I analyze that data and from that I create visual maps and then sort of a cultural narrative of what the smells tell you about these cities in response to what comes out of the scent walks,” McLean-Mackenzie said. “So it’s all human interpretation, very much subjective, and it’s about the stories that smells in cities lead us to.”
Cities that have been mapped since 2011 include Glasgow, Edinburgh, Canterbury, Amsterdam, Verona, Kyiv, Kolkata and Paris; the atlas covers 40 places.
Although a person's sense of smell compared to other animals long ridiculed, recent studies have shown that it should not be sniffed: among other studies, scientists have found that people can distinguish odors that arise simply with a difference of tens of milliseconds.
McLean-Mackenzie said the purpose of the scent walks was not to recognize the scent itself. “It’s about giving that smell a name and therefore giving those smells meaning in people’s lives.”
Among the examples, McLean-Mackenzie said one participant described a certain smell as “the smell of broken dreams.”
“Someone from New York said that… the smell of broken dreams is the smell of stale beer on the sidewalk when I walk home alone late at night,” she said.
The maps, she added, reflect the ephemeral nature of smells, showing the source of the smell on the day the scent walk took place and where the smell might be taken.
“It's like an impressionistic painting of light. It's a moment in time, and the only way to experience it is to go outside and smell yourself,” she said.
McLean-McKenzie said the maps could be a useful historical record of what cities smell like now, because future generations may have different experiences—for example, as electric vehicles become more common.
She hopes the atlas will encourage readers to engage all their senses while walking, both physically and digitally.
“By engaging with how other people experience the scents of a space in a way that you cannot, there is a level of acceptance, tolerance and understanding of the fact that as individuals we are all very different and see things differently,” she added.
McLean-Mackenzie said even the smells associated with the festival can depend on where in the world someone is.
“We can say [the] the smells of Christmas are mince pies, Christmas pudding, turkey, bonfires and all that,” she said. “But in Kolkata there are none, these are the smells of Chhena cake, lights and different things happening around, and different drinks and food. And they smell of cold—20 degrees, while ours smells minus.”
Smells can even bring surprises: McLean-Mackenzie said that when a participant recording smells in Antarctica came across a dead seal, he discovered that its skin had a pleasant smell.
“Just because something smells doesn't mean it's bad, and it's only temporary,” she said. “So get over yourself and go and smell it and see what it's like.”
