It began when Leemans became a professor at VU in 2010 and, along with several colleagues, founded ACCESS the Amsterdam Centre for Cross-disciplinary Emotion and Sensory Studies.
'Everywhere, people were looking at the role of emotions and senses in society and how that role changes with each culture and period. We established a research programme that brought together scholars from the humanities and social sciences: anthropologists, psychologists, and others.'
The interest in scent emerged when she met art historian Caro Verbeek: 'Caro wanted to research the history of scent and its relationship with art.' Verbeek’s research sparked interest in the history of scent as a phenomenon, leading to a wave of publicity that continues to this day.
Odeuropa
In 2020, the pan-European transdisciplinary research project Odeuropa was launched, with Leemans as the principal investigator. The research focuses on scent experiences and scents from the past, but how do you retrieve scents from history?
'We’ve done a lot of conceptual and methodological work and innovated. Together with computer science groups, we developed sensory mining models. The computer has been trained to trace ‘scent testimonies’ in digitised texts and image collections. At each step, historians, art historians, and perfumers were involved. This way, we integrated human and computer efforts.'
Scent Testimonies
The results exceeded Leemans’ wildest expectations. 'We now have 2.5 million scent testimonies. For years, people can find inspiration and conduct research from this.'
Sometimes, a scent can be reconstructed, such as the smell of the English Queen’s car. For this, a chemical analysis of the car’s molecules was made, as the vehicle still exists. The situation is different for the scent of the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam. “For that, you need cultural historical research, such as notarial archives and paintings depicting public secrets. Then you have a ‘recipe’ that perfumers can work with. For Odeuropa, we primarily collaborated with the perfumers at IFF.'
Leemans emphasises that this does not mean the canals smelled like that. 'This is just the beginning of considering what that scent might have been and what it could have meant for people.'
Impact
Several museums have now combined scent experiences with exhibitions. What did the public think? Leemans: 'The impact is significant. People find museum visits more enjoyable and interesting when scent is involved. They look at paintings longer, discover more, and remember it for longer.'
She continues: 'What is very important for museums is that scent is inclusive. Everyone can smell, and everyone brings their own scent experiences. People start talking and sharing their experiences. In this way, scent can also bridge gaps between people.'
Combine the strenghts
Odeuropa earned Leemans a nomination for the Huibregtsen Prize 2024. 'I see it as a nomination for a whole project, actually for the entire movement of scent research, for all the scent artists and other creative pioneers who have tried to show in recent years that scent is part of our heritage.'
Leemans believes it is high time to push forward, although the announced budget cuts concern her: 'We now have the opportunity to combine all those strengths and build new expertise together; let’s hope the research landscape isn’t completely stripped down.'
