Literally, in that she invented a lexicon called Nasalo with more than 2,500 terms -- like "clesh" for clean sea and "ino," which is like cleaned asphalt and stones. But also metaphorically, in that she has the highly trained snout, chemical knowledge and technological tool kit to perceive it.
— From a long piece on smell artist Sissel Tolaas at Engadget. Read more at On the nose: Sissel Tolaas is a star in the world of smells.
I got caught sniffing a gravestone yesterday ( it was the moss and lichen, honest) and now I realise how crazy/weird I must have looked. Glad there was no camera crew.
Yeah. In general I am glad every day that there is no camera crew. (Did it smell good?)
It smelled like old dry paper with a hint of cinnamon.
Well that sounds good to me.
This is such an interesting and informative article – thanks for posting it Robin! It has some very useful take-away points I can use in my upcoming class on religion and olfaction
That sounds like a really interesting class! I’d love to hear about some of the themes of that class!
Oh, that does sound like a great class, where are you teaching?
And if you are interested in Sissel Tolaas, do check out the tag…I’ve been following her activities for years.
https://nstperfume.com/tag/sissel-tolaas/
It’s a college course on religious traditions, how they get mediated, and with what bodily or sensory effects. So when we cover the olfactory we will look at how scent is a medium of connection to the divine or the sacred in some religious traditions (for example the use of incense in the Eastern Orthodox Church) but we also look at the politics of religious smells for believers and how these can sustain or challenge various power relations. One article we read is about how poor Pentecostals in Brazil recycle the aroma chemical waste of fragrance and flavor factories and put this “waste” to new religious uses – it’s very interesting! I actually teach not far from Lansing so I will try to check out Tolaas exhibition there.
That sounds fascinating, thanks so much for the description!