Producer: Annie Bender · CBC Radio · Jun 03, 55:13
Smell has been called the ‘Cinderella sense,’ capable of inspiring profound admiration if we stop turning our noses at it. Producer Annie Bender examines what we lose when we take our powerful — but often misunderstood — sense of smell for granted.

Canadians who have lost their sense of smell say it’s misunderstood, undervalued — and deserves more attention. Modern research suggests that smell is less dispensable than we might think, and can tell us a lot.

My contribution to this podcast is a description of the power of smell walking to engage with our sense of smell, and a series of strategies and steps to facilitate this process as itemised in my “Smellfie” kit. Download the Smellfit kit.

Welcome to smell world. Smell world, to me, exists in the space of an unremarked zone between the source of a smell and the human nose.

In this podcast, previously performed at the British Library in November 2017, I would like to introduce you to a physical space of the double invisible sense. Smell.

Quite literally we cannot see most smells, except of course those that are nestled within smoke or vapour visible in the air. And figuratively, since Aristotle said, “For it is not clear what sort of quality odour is, in the way it was clear what sort of quality sound or colour was…” smell perception was relegated to a lower order attracting less research and less attention.

At the Future of Storytelling Festival 2017 many exhibits explored virtual reality and augmented reality. This series of smellwalks served as a complete contrast to hi-tech audio-visual narratives with participants using “sensed reality”; a gentle sniff and amble, with an occasional stretch or stoop, through the grounds of Snug Harbor Cultural Center grounds.

Participants then created a similarly low-tech mapping of their experience using ephemeral materials. Coloured chalks were offered as smell walkers visualised their favoured smell of the walk onto a crayon map of the location.

On the third day it rained, and all the smell visuals disappeared.

Odours and opinions are the key components of a smellscape map, and New York has both in abundance.

Primary smell research, conducted via human sniffs, was gleaned from the noses of Summer Streets employees and Village Alliance during April, May and June 2017 resulting in a labelled Smellmap of the neighborhood.

In August 2017 installation visitors undertook smellwalks and were asked to superimpose their “smellervations” on top of the printed map in the form of graffiti.

Resulting layering of smells onto the map renders the smellscape as a dynamic and contested airspace.

When an intimacy occurs between “subject” and “object”, it must surely be the world of smell and the places they reside’ (Lefebvre, 1991 p.197). A smellwalk around a single Brooklyn block explored this experience of immediacy and transfer between the apparently brave (sniffer) and seeming unpalatable (trash can) to discover the unexpected odour (minty gum).

Smellsketch Brooklyn is an allusive smell colour sketch with verbatim descriptions from a single block smellwalk in September 2014. The block was chosen by local residents as representative of re-zoning and ‘typical’ in the neighbourhood.

City smells provide an insight into the make-up of a neighborhood; the smells indicating a “meshwork of entangled lines of life, growth and movement” mingle as a “texture of interwoven threads” Ingold, 2010).

Thresholds explores the doorways, portals and spaces between the street and building interiors. There are distinct “street smells”, specific “store smells”, and a range of “shared smells” that belong neither inside nor outside – a warm wood, green leafy volatiles of the floristry stores, shared bakery aromas crossing an imaginary divide of a large serving-hatch open window. The strongest smells were old fish on W 10th, watermelon / strawberry in the Scandinavian candy store on Christopher, intense leather and rubber from the fetish shop. The richest combination of smells were located on street corners where humans, activity and winds intersect.

This map forms part of a series of New York City block maps completed over a number of years.

Newport’s scents are largely ocean-based; the ocean itself, the lobster bait, suntan oil from the bathing tourists, beach roses that brighten the low lying sand dunes. In contrast country smells of hay and juniper speak to the rural aspects of the city. Downtown, the smells congregate along Thames Street, Broadway and the busy Wharfs.

Smells share an attribute with the depth soundings in that they are constantly shifting and Newport, as home of the America’s cup has a sailing history. The visual lexicon for the city’s aromas map is based on an NOAA chart.