Sissel Tolaas

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The Elisava Masters' Talks season kicks off with Sissel Tolaas, a world-renowned researcher and artist known for her revolutionary explorations on the topic of smell. Born in Norway, based in Berlin with degrees in chemistry, art, language and mathematics from the universities of Oslo, Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Oxford and laboratories in Berlin, Shanghai, Oman, and soon Bahrain, her mission to reveal the power of the olfactory sense has led her around the world. Tolaas embodies the elusive blending of science and art; of inspiration and rigor.

At Elisava, Tolaas offers a primary lesson about the most neglected of the five human senses and will speak about how to access hidden information in the air through our noses. During a time dominated by visual data, she demonstrates how smell is fertile terrain for creative minds.

A pioneer in the field, she is renowned for her innovative and unique approach to advancing the science and understanding of olfaction. Drawing on her expertise in forensic chemistry, chemical communication, sensory
ecology, linguistics, and visual art, she has developed a broad range of groundbreaking interdisciplinary projects involving smell, implemented worldwide. In January 2004, Tolaas founded the professional smell chemistry lab: SMELL RE_searchLab in Berlin – supported by the industry and various universities.

Her expertise includes advanced smell recognition, analysis, and reproduction, as well
as the coding and functional understanding of smell molecules. She has created novel
methods for coding abstract smell molecules and studying linguistic responses to both
individual smells and olfactory experiences in general. Tolaas has explored the science
and art of smell in diverse contexts, applying her knowledge to a variety of purposes
and formats.

Her research and projects have won recognition through numerous national and
international scholarships, honours, and prizes. She is very capable at collaborating
intensively with those of other disciplines across the globe.

Tolaas has shown her projects in many museums and institutions including Museum of
Modern Art, MOMA, New York; National Gallery of Victoria NGV, Melbourne; DIA
Art Foundation, New York; CCA Singapore, Tate Modern London; Shanghai Minsheng
Art Museum, Shanghai; MORI Museum, Tokyo. She has worked with universities such
as MIT, Nanyang Technical, Tsinghua, Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford. She has built up
several types of smell archives such as: Smell & Communication/ language; Smell &
Coding, Smell & Anthropocene; Smell & Extinction; Smell & Sensory Ecology;
Functional Smell Molecules. Tolaas’ collections of smell molecules; smell complex
structures and smell para data from 1990 and ongoing are including up to 20,000 smell
recording samples and formulas.

She is currently working on smell-molecule legacies and preservation /conservation
archives such as: Cristobal Balenciaga Legacy; the World’s Oceans and
World’s Forests; smell geofacts / artefacts /archives at The Metropolitan Museum , New
York; smell heritage archive for the Pompeii & UNESCO, Pompeii ; Bahrain Pearling
Path & UNESCO, Bahrain; Museum of Oriental Art, Turin.