Join us for an engaging lecture by Dr. Kate McLean-MacKenzie. The lecture will explore the topic of smellscapes and takes place on Wednesday 26/11/2025 at 18h online via Webex: https://unistuttgart.webex.com/unistuttgart-en/j.php?MTID=m53e1b48e3c1e668d3d589939cbbc8e95.
The Lecture
Human olfactory perception contributes to our understanding of the world; slight whiffs can enable pre-visualisation of a forthcoming activity, serve as a summary synthesis of previously witnessed events and have the capacity to evoke situated memories. Sensory methodologies of smellwalking and smellscape mapping explore how humans attribute meaning to place through information collected nose-first. This first part of this lecture discusses eight key findings from a series of smell mapping projects detailing how people perceive and construct meanings via their sense of smell. Section two will provide guidance on smell walking and smell visualisation as strategies to uncover locallydefined urban scents, smells and stinks.
The Lecturer
Kate McLean-MacKenzie is a practising designer, cartographer, researcher, and collector of smells and their stories. A leading expert on smellwalking and smellscape mapping, McLean has spent the past 14 years visualising how humans gain knowledge, and make sense of their worlds through their noses. With a PhD from the Royal College of Art, over 20 academic publications and an edited book “Designing with smell: practices, techniques and challenges”, she is now working on the world’s first “Atlas of Scents, Smells & Stinks”, commissioned by Orion Press.
