Maki Ueda. Olfactory Labyrinth Ver. 2.

A maze at Villa Rot

On 24 March 2015, Maki Ueda's Olfactory Labyrinth Ver. 2 opened at Museum Villa Rot in Germany, as part of the exhibition There is something in the air, curated by Caro Verbeek. The title already announced what visitors would meet: something in the air, invisible, but real.

The work is a maze. Its walls are infused with woody aromatic compounds. There are four: cedarwood, olibanum, patchouli and labdanum. Cedarwood is a wood. Olibanum is the resin of a dry country tree. Patchouli is a leaf. Labdanum is the resin of a Mediterranean shrub. Four different origins, all warm, dry and deep.

The rule is brief. At the entrance, the walker chooses one smell. From there, they must follow that smell through every turn. Follow it correctly and they find the exit.

This version was sponsored by Jean Bouis Perfumery. For a maze of smells to work, the scents must be durable enough to stay on the walls through the exhibition, and distinct enough for ordinary noses to tell apart.

When the eyes stop working

A maze is usually a game for the eyes. We look at turns, remember walls, guess directions. Ueda removes most of those clues. The walls do not say which way is right. The only difference between paths is smell.

Ueda is interested in losing one's bearings, and in movement. Smell is received differently when we move. Standing still, we get used to a smell quickly and stop noticing it. Walking, the smell grows or fades, and that change tells us whether we are on track.

So walkers slow down. They pause at each turn, lean toward the wall, breathe in. The body makes the movements of an animal following a trail, a posture city life rarely asks of us. The maze also makes people remember: the smell caught at the entrance must be held and compared at every corner.

One series, many versions

Maki Ueda is a Japanese artist who has worked for many years in the Netherlands, with smell as her main material. The Olfactory Labyrinth series began in 2013, each version testing another way of navigating by nose.

Ver. 2 did not stay at Villa Rot. From 14 February 2019 to 14 February 2020 it was shown at the Musée de la Main in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the exhibition QUEL FLAIR!, supported by Firmenich in Geneva. For a full year, visitors in Lausanne walked through the same four woods.

Later versions changed both form and metaphor. Ver. 4 in São Paulo had no walls, only bottles hanging from the ceiling, leading walkers to invisible cherry trees. Ver. 2 keeps an almost classical shape: a real maze, real walls, and one first choice that decides everything after.

What stays is the simplicity of the question. How far can we trust our nose? Most of us have never tried. Ueda builds a space to try, and lets walkers discover that their nose knows the way better than they thought.