Christmas may be associated with the aromas of oranges and mince pies but our towns and cities also boast special scents during the rest of the year. Now, one researcher is publishing an atlas attempting to capture these quirky \u201csmellscapes\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realised that there was an enormous gap in the fact that we communicate what we see \u2013 and we can record that and we can share it via Instagram and photography and sketching \u2013 and we can record and share sounds digitally. But any way of recording and communicating smell was largely missing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As a result, McLean-MacKenzie began mapping \u201csmellscapes\u201d in different locations, including many of the world\u2019s cities.<\/p>\n
This involves asking participants to take \u201csmell walks\u201d on the street \u2013 recording not only what they can smell but its intensity and duration, whether it is unexpected, whether they like it or not, and any associations the scent conjures up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI analyse that data and from it create visual maps and then a sort of cultural narrative about what smell tells you about those cities in response to what came out from the smell walks,\u201d McLean-MacKenzie said. \u201cSo it\u2019s all human interpretation, it\u2019s largely subjective, and it\u2019s about the stories that smells lead us to in cities.\u201d<\/p>\n
One man said a late-night New York walk had \u2018the smell of shattered dreams\u2019. Photograph: Charly Triballeau\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Among the cities that have been mapped since 2011 are Glasgow, Edinburgh, Canterbury, Amsterdam, Verona, Kyiv, Kolkata and Paris, with the atlas covering 40 locations.<\/p>\n
While humans\u2019 sense of smell compared with that of other animals<\/a> has long been derided, recent research has shown it is not to be sniffed at: among other studies, scientists have found people can tell apart smells that arise just tens of milliseconds apart<\/a>. <\/p>\n McLean-MacKenzie said the goal of the smell walks was not to identify a scent per se. \u201cIt\u2019s about naming it and therefore giving those smells meaning in people\u2019s lives.\u201d <\/p>\n Among the examples, McLean-MacKenzie said one participant called a particular waft \u201cthe smell of shattered dreams\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was somebody in New York who basically said \u2026 the smell of shattered dreams is the smell of stale beer on the sidewalk, walking home late at night, single still,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The maps, she added, capture the ephemeral nature of smells, showing the source of the odour on the day the smell walk took place, and where the scent may be blown.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like an impressionist painting of light. It\u2019s a moment in time and the only way that you\u2019ll get to experience it is by going out and smelling for yourself,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n McLean-MacKenzie said the maps could become a useful historical record of how cities smell now, because future generations may have different experiences \u2013 as electric vehicles proliferate, for example.<\/p>\n The smell of petrol on a busy London street may soon be a thing of the past. Photograph: Alamy<\/p>\n She hopes the atlas will encourage readers to engage with all their senses when out walking, and in a physical as well as a digital way.<\/p>\n \u201cBy engaging with how other people smell spaces in ways that you might not, there\u2019s a level of acceptance, tolerance and understanding of the fact that as individuals we are all very different and we do see things in different ways,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n McLean-MacKenzie said even festival-related scents could depend on where in the world someone is.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can say [the] smells of Christmas are mince pies and Christmas pudding and turkey and fires and all the rest of it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in Kolkata they\u2019re not, they\u2019re smells of Chhena cake and lights and different things happening and different drinks and foods around. And the smell of cold for them is 20C, whereas for us it\u2019s sub-zero.\u201d<\/p>\n Smells can even bring surprises: McLean-MacKenzie said that when a participant who recorded smells in Antarctica came across a dead seal, they found it had a pleasant, leather-like odour.<\/p>\n \u201cJust because something smells doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s bad, and it\u2019s only there temporarily,\u201d she said. \u201cSo get over yourself and go and have a whiff and see what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christmas may be associated with the aromas of oranges and mince pies but our towns and cities also…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-202046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}