Sissel Tolaas: Berlin, City Smell Reasearch

Sissel Tolaas is a Norweigan artist currently working from Berlin. With a background in mathematics, chemistry, and visual arts, she uses headspace technology to capture natural scents of all sorts, from sour milk to fresh laundry. In Berlin, City Smell Research, Tolaas created an olfactory map of Berlin, putting the scents in glass bottles evocative of the physical location of where each scent was collected.

With an archive of over seven thousand smells, Tolaas's approach relates to aesthetic journalism in that it doesn't seek to portray certain scents as "good" or "bad." However, despite this, the scents have the power of eliciting strong emotional responses and memories. A great deal of art and journalism depend on visuals, but conveying a place through smell can cause you to perceive a place in a different way.