Scents of Place

A lyrical and contemplative gallery tour is unexpectedly interrupted by personal memories. Shared metaphors are conjured up by remembered, real and imagined smells.

Taking a meditative museum tour as its guide this olfactory tour reminds us of the extraordinary link between smell and memory and reminds us of our neglect of this mute sense. This tour of melancholy reproductions is interrupted by irrepressible emotions. Images of what has been lost are summoned by the lingering smells of the gallery. What role do these smells play in our enduring impression of place? How do we distinguish between the real and fake?

Phantosmia (olfactory hallucinations) sees smells appear that are not really there. On developing these hallucinogenic symptoms, experience of places and museums become a different experience. Repeatedly looking to see if others were having their thoughts and memories of these spaces interrupted by similar alarming interludes. This distorted sensory perception raises a multitude of questions around this often unappreciated sense, olfaction’s extricable link with feeling, memory, safety and lack of appropriate language.