On Air with BBC World Service Radio

by | Apr 8, 2026

On Air with BBC World Service: Talking Olfactory Heritage & Wayfinders

I recently had the pleasure of being featured on the Weekend program on the BBC World Service, where I spoke about the growing field of olfactory heritage and how scent can be used as a meaningful tool for interpretation in museums.

During the interview, I discussed WayFinders: Making Sense of Our World, a permanent multisensory exhibition at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore. The exhibition invites visitors to explore history through their senses, highlighting how sensory perception shapes the way we understand the past. By engaging smell alongside other senses, WayFinders encourages visitors to become “WayFinders”—active participants in making sense of history through embodied experience.

This project was developed in collaboration with curator Margot Kopera and perfumer Gus Romero of Team of Two Perfumers, in partnership with the Fragrance Alliance Network. Together, we worked to integrate scent as a thoughtful and accessible interpretive layer within the exhibition.

It was a wonderful opportunity to share this work with a global audience and to highlight how olfactory storytelling can open up new, more inclusive ways of engaging with cultural heritage. Check out the full recording below!

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Written by Sofia Collette Ehrich

Sofia Collette Ehrich is an art historian, olfactory museologist, researcher, and podcast host. She is the founder of the Olfactory Contractor, a company that coaches and consults museum practitioners and others on the educational impact sensory storytelling has on the public.

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