Ellesmere Port’s Scentscape

A July weekend in Ellesmere Port saw 3 walking tours of sensory discovery. Local residents and workers sniffed out the stories of who and what is going on in town, re-imagining Ellesmere Port from a different perspective. From freshly-baked bread and cut grass to BO, the 45-minute walks revealed completely new worlds.

Participants allocated a colour and a shape to each smell, to give it a physical form, translating perceptions of the invisible scents into a visual. A blank map was filled with pinned individual perceptions in the form of smellnotes. One smellnote per participant is included on the Ellesmere Port Scent Map with “smellsketch” visuals, sometimes by the participant and sometimes an interpretation by the designer.

Perceived smell colour varies across the Ellesmere Port Scent Map green scents in Rivacre Valley Nature Reserve (attributable to the colours of the surroundings?), warmer red and yellow hues in the food market (direct references to the food stuffs), and pastel shades in the Port Arcades Shopping Centre with smells of humankind as a “meshwork” of scents to a sharp “V” shape representing the “hit” of BO. The perceived colour of the industrial works situated out of town varies from blue to sludge to grey but frequently takes the form of a cloud formation.

Show More Show Less
Date: 2014
Media & size: Digital print, 841mm x 594mm

Exhibited:
2014 – In the Daily Bread Café, Trinity Methodist Church, Ellesmere Port

Collaborators:
Sponsored by Cheshire West and Chester
Coordinated by NKProjects
Mask illustrations ©2014 Marie Menuel