Maki Ueda. Olfactoscape Ver. 1 (2010).

An olfactory space. three meters wide. built of curtain.

Olfactoscape is a three-meter-diameter circular space built of curtain. The walls are invisibly painted with smells. In 2010 Maki Ueda built the first version of this work in Osaka, produced by Inframince and Pantaloon.

Inside the enclosed space, a visitor walks and sniffs: hinoki, camphor, lily of the valley, cherry blossoms, wild rose, forest with fallen leaves, ginger, yuzu, matsutake, wild lily, cinnamon, grass. Each scent is anchored to a place on the curtain. From a distance, faint. Up close, distinct.

Ueda asks whether a landscape can be viewed through the nose. Her answer is not a sentence but a space one walks through. Every position holds a scent that waits, a scent that fades. The landscape is not seen. The landscape comes into being inside the body of the one walking.

The Japanese way of marking seasons through scent, Ueda names in specific species. Cherry blossom of early spring. Osmanthus of autumn. Hinoki, wet wood after rain. Scent is not concept. Scent is matter, in its own place.