What Does History Smell Like?
Dr. Bembibre said that applying the scientific method  a universal language and standardized techniques  is a challenge with smell. When you ask a volunteer to describe a smell, she said, they tend to use words related to their experience, so theyll say, This smells like the bottom of my grandmas drawer. Dr. Bembibre wants to fuse the scientific approach with the more sociological aspects of cultural heritage work for a hybrid technique of archiving smell. The field of scent research is gaining recognition and funding internationally, but smell has long been less studied than the other senses. It can be hard, Dr. Bembibre said, to convince historians, sociologists and other researchers that smell is just as significant as other intangible heritages like a dance or religious ritual. Its gaining ground, but its a bit of an oddity, she said. Bringing smell into a museum context can be one way to make art more accessible, particularly for visitors who are blind or partially sighted, and those who have dementia. Marie Clapot, associate museum educator for accessibility at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has worked over the last few years to integrate smell into the museum. A lot has been done with touch, with tactile approaches, movement, and sound and it kind of dawned on me, we havent been doing much with smell, Ms. Clapot said. Its not just about, Oh, its nice to smell something. Its one way you can make an art object accessible. It is also a way, she said, to bring a number of people into the conversation about art who might not be moved by traditional art history. Ms. Clapot has worked to create smells that can be paired with objects and be integrated into tours, using scent strips dipped in oil. She created a scent inspired by a sculpture called Spring in the Guise of Flora by Pietro Bernini, based on the fruit and flowers of the Italian spring, and a Pierre Bonnard painting that featured the clash of warm and cool colors. This last one included elements like sandalwood and patchouli to evoke warmth with cooler smells like methyl ionone. If you bring the immersive aspect of the scent, it really helps a person to develop a story and image around the object, Ms. Clapot said. Other researchers have approached cultural preservation of smell through the larger lens of place. Smell is incredibly linked to its context, said Kate McLean, a graphic designer and smell researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University. So we will like a smell of fish in a fish market, but think its strange if we smell of fish in a public park, maybe. Dr. McLean tries to preserve smells in their contexts, leading smell walks all over the world. She has mapped smellscapes in places like Staten Island and Pamplona, linking peoples sensory impressions with place.