Sniffing Around Amsterdam

During my three years as the olfactory events manager on the Odeuropa project, I produced many projects. One of those was City Sniffers: A smell tour of Amsterdam’s ecohistory, a pop- up, self-guided, olfactory tour. It followed one path of six stops with scents and stories around the olfactory heritage of the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands. The event used a free phone application and scratch and sniff map to navigate. All aspects were developed by the Odeuropa team, with myself as creative producer. The Amsterdam Museum hosted the event, the scents were developed in collaboration with IFF and the maps were printed by Scent the Brand and designed by Liam R. Findlay. 

This public-facing, urban smell tour explored six locations with significant elements of olfactory heritage in Amsterdam. It was designed to bring forward overlooked ecological narratives through scent. Participants sniffed historical scents via a Rub n’ Sniff card and read specially curated historical narratives via a smartphone application.

The goal of the event was to experiment with mobile scent distribution methods and curate untold narratives through scent.

The tour makes “invisible” histories tangible with five emblematic “reconstructed” smells:

1. Rosemary— connected to historical traditions of memory keeping;
2. Civet cat — with ties to the colonial perfume trade;
3. Pomander — as a protagonist against plague-era disease fears;
4. linden trees — to mask city stenches with a green urban flora and
5. Canal stench — to represent historic waterways and pollution.

Provided by IFF, these historical scent reconstructions were borrowed from various olfactory events. Some from Fleeting – Scents in Colour (2021) an exhibition curated at the Mauritshuis, Netherlands. Others were used from Odeuropa’s Follow Your Nose! A Guided Tour with Smells (2022).

We learned a lot from the research and development on these scent distribution techniques:

• Mobile Scent Distribution: Participants could guide and explore Amsterdam through scent alone and at their own convenience. 
• Scenting the Digital: The event experimented with combining a mobile app with scent cards. This interaction prompts tangible scent cards to foster an active, smell-led exploration.
• Inclusive Narratives: Interacting with scent and cultural heritage allows the inclusion of information about class, gender, and colonial histories to emerge directly

1. National Geographic’s article, What’s that smell? It might just be the next big thing in travel.
2. The event was featured on a Dutch news station, AT5 with historian and writer, Geert Mak: 
3. Theme park and museum smell expert, Liam R. Findlay made a feature video about the event on his YouTube channel.

City Sniffers showed us that scent can make hidden urban histories instantly tangible. The simple pairing of a mobile app with scratch-and-sniff cards proved that mobile smell delivery is not only possible, but engaging. Most importantly, we learned that people are eager for sensory approaches to heritage—especially when collaboration between museums, perfumers, and designers brings these stories to life.