Can you help me by describing smells?

Dear Messestadt residents,

My name ist Sissel Tolaas. I am a Norwegian artist of Icelandic extraction who has lived for a number of years in Berlin. kunstprojekte_riem has invited me to devise a project for Messestadt Riem. My project is called 'GERUCH & SPRACHE' (smell and language), a subject that has preoccupied me since 1992.

As we all know, there are certain things you don't talk about, however hard it may be to resist the temptation. But there is absolutely no reason to be silent about smelling and smells. In conjunction with our other senses, with our feelings and ideas, the evidence of our noses is remarkably wide-ranging, yet there exists a striking disparity between the richness of the world as perceived via the sense of smell and the poverty of the language used to describe it. Why?

In the Western world smelling and smells are generally described in a roundabout way, frequently with recourse to verbal imagery. Often, the cause or source of the smell, or its effect, is named as a substitute for direct description. A child, for example, might be said to smell of horse dung or milk, or a smell may be called a 'foul stench'. Bodily functions and sources of strong smells (especially animals) frequently provide the metaphors: we 'soak up' or 'drink in' smells; someone 'smells like a pig'.

Yet it is possible to describe smells directly. Do words exist in your native tongue for describing smells? Are smells categorised in a particular way in your language? I know, for example, that some African, Asian and South American languages possess such forms of categorisation and I want to find out about the relations between smells and verbal description in as many languages as possible.

Please help me. Even if you're not certain whether your language categorises smells systematically, do get in touch with me. I look forward to meeting everyone.

If we meet I'd like to bring along two different smells and ask you to describe them in your native tongue. On the basis of such meetings, and with the expert assistance of a linguist, I hope to develop a new language. The results will be presented along with the smells at various places in Messestadt.

Further information can be obtained from Claudia Büttner or Christina Kaufmann at kunstprojekte_riem, Erika-Cremer-Strasse 3, 81829 Munich, tel. +44(0)89-94379849, e-mail info@kunstprojekte-riem.de. If you would like to help me, please contact kunstprojekte_riem.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

Sissel Tolaas