"Scent can build a bridge between people."
Interview
Inger Leemans Professor of Cultural History at VU Amsterdam and head of NL-Lab
How did scientists come up with the idea of researching smells? It is a question that Professor of Cultural History Inger Leemans has often heard. "Scent research is seen as a niche by many, while scents are super important phenomena in our society. We smell scents all day, they help us remember, we communicate with them, we make relationships with them. Scent is part of our cultural heritage.”
It started in 2010 when Leemans joined VU Amsterdam as a professor and, together with a number of colleagues founded ACCESS: the Amsterdam Centre for Cross-Disciplinary Emotion and Sensory Studies.
"We saw that people everywhere were looking at the role of emotions and senses in society and how that role is constantly changing across cultures and periods. Then we set up an interdisciplinary research programme."
"Scent is part of our cultural heritage."
The interest in smells arose when art historian Caro Verbeek knocked on Leemans’ door. "She wanted to research the history of smells and the relationship between scent and art." Verbeek's dissertation focussed on the way futurists used scent. Her research sparked interest in scent history, scent art, and scent as a phenomenon, leading to a storm of publicity that continues to this day.
Smell Testimonies
In 2020, the pan-European transdisciplinary research project Odeuropa was launched, with Leemans as the lead researcher. The research focuses on scent experience and scents from the past. How do you retrieve scents from the past?
"We have done a lot of conceptual and methodological work and have innovated. Together with computer scientists, we trained the computer to trace ‘smell testimonies' in digitised texts and image collections. Historians, art historians and perfumers were involved at every step. In this way, we integrated humans and computers."
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"People find visiting a museum more fun and interesting when smells are added."
Amsterdam’s City Maiden
The results exceeded Leeman's wildest expectations. "We have now collected and brought together 2.5 million scent testimonies. Researchers will be able to draw inspiration from and build on this for years to come."
But how do you bring historical scent heritage back to life? "In some cases, a scent can be reconstructed, such as the smell of the English Queen's car, because the car still exists. This is different for the smell of the 17th-century Amsterdam canals. For that you need cultural-historical research. We have a lot of scent testimonies that describe the 'stinking breath' of the Amsterdam City Maiden. Complaints in the notary archives, for example, and paintings, on which you can see the public privies on the canals. Then you have a 'recipe' that perfumers can work with."
Leemans emphasises that this does not mean that the canals smelled like this in the 17th century. "This is the starting point for thinking about what that smell might have been and how it might have affected the people who smelled it."
Impact
A number of museums have now combined exhibitions with scent experience. What did the public think of it? Leemans: "It turns out that the impact of olfactory storytelling, the use of scents in a museum or heritage context, is substantial.
People find visiting a museum more fun and interesting if there is a smell. They look at paintings longer, discover more and they remember the experience longer."
She continues: "What is very important for museums: scent is inclusive. For example, people who cannot see are now able to experience art or heritage. Art is also inclusive, as almost everyone can smell and have their own olfactory experience. People start talking and they share their experiences. In that sense, scent can also build a bridge between people."
"Let's hope that the research landscape is not completely stripped down."
Creative pioneers
Odeuropa earned Leemans the nomination for the prestigious Huibregtsen Prize this year. "I see it as a nomination for an entire project, for the entire movement of scent research, for all scent artists and other creative pioneers who have tried to show in recent years -- often plodding on their own -- that scent is part of our heritage."
Leemans therefore thinks it is high time to take action, although the announced cutbacks worry her: "We now have the opportunity to build up new expertise together. Let's hope that the research landscape is not completely stripped down."
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About Inger Leemans
Inger Leemans is Professor of Cultural History at VU Amsterdam and head of NL-Lab, a research group on Dutch culture and identity within the Humanities Cluster of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
magazine for humanities alumni december 2024