#smellwalk

A couple of weeks ago, during the Smell Lab #5 Nika Mavrody from the DAILYSCRET.COM came for a visit. The online blog is about what a city has to offer, best and most interesting happenings and places around the world.

During session #5 we went for a walk around Kreuzberg and Neukölln. Our objective was to practice how to recollect some “objects” or components of the street which are scented. We also wanted to see if we could impragnate some cotton like textiles with those smells.

When Nika came we had already returned from the district excursion and we were already sniffing and passing around the samples.

Check the article here to read what were we up to:

smellWALK - one to one pt.1

Eleni and I met at Genariou corner Zinonos. She is an architect and artist from Athens. We walked around Sokratous street together. We smelled some urban objects like postboxes, mottos, phone booth, but mostly the air in the streets. I never thought that “smelling the air in the streets” was a good idea, but in this occasion it worked, the airs of the area are so strongly fragranced that any other object was making us feel like we suffer from anosmia. We also entered 3 establishments: an old style apothecary where you can buy any essential oil you like (didn’t get any because they were all produced in Germany!!), a species shop (where I got plenty of stuff to distill) and a hotel called “Fresh hotel”. The name says everything. It smelled like fresh air, mint, made me feel cold. The receptionist says that she dislikes that scent very much since it makes her sneeze very much. However, she tried to contact her boss so we could figure out what’s exactly the scent made from. No exit, boss not at work.