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  •  Olfactory Oosterdok
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  • "Eau d'îles de l'Est"

    Smells of the water

    This is the first part of a three-part series written by Iris van den Linden and Amber Striekwold. In this series, Iris and Amber fashion a conceptual perfume of Oosterdok. Like every perfume, their...
  • Climate
  • Research
  • Smell
  • History

  • Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat

    Amsterdam’s Relationship with Civet Cats

    Have you ever wondered what civet pheromones extracted from its anal glands smell like? Actually... don't answer that. Just drop by our AromaLab and catch a whiff yourself. But first, read about...

  • Supplying the Dutch Diet Pt. 2

    Bread

    Life near the Port of Amsterdam was not only scented by colonial activities. Afterall, a huge portion of businesses ran by the docks were also to sustain a whole city of people. Having said that, the...

  • Those Who Bled for Nutmeg

    The Narrative Contextualized within Banda Island's Larger History

    “The island can be smelled before it can be seen. From more than ten miles out to sea a fragrance hangs in the air and long before the bowler-hat mountain hoves into view you are nearing land.”...

  • Pelts and skin

    Smelly goods from New Amsterdam

    “If it was the search for a short route to Asia that brought the Dutch to North America, it was the beaver that made them stay” ( NNI, 2019 ). Like most trade network, the North American fur trade...

  • The Making(s) of Biryani

    by Masuma Halai Khwaja

    Masuma Khwaja is a brilliant artist from Karachi, Pakistan, whom we are excited to welcome as our first guest artist of 2020. During her one-week research stay with Mediamatic in mid-January

  • A Blame, A Barrier

    Olfactory Discourse Regarding the Other

    R: Dutch children weren’t allowed to be held, [because] later they’d smell of [our] sweat. Holding them wasn’t allowed… [T]hey [The Dutch] were afraid [of their children] being soaked in sweat, sweat...

  • A Dutch-style cleaning frenzy?

    What has cleanliness got to do with anything?

  • Of mothballs and grandma

    Camphor's history with the Dutch

    Cinnamomum Camphora , the fragrant camphor tree. A possibly large evergreen tree, with pale bark and dots of white flowers which will eventually bloom into small purple berries. While sight of the...

  • Supplying the Dutch Diet Pt. 1

    Pickled Herring

    Along the lines of the previous topic : The Amsterdam port did not only shelter ships coming from abroad. Some of the vessels coming into the docks were also ships related to local industry. During...

  • "Eau d'îles de l'Est"

    Odour of the industries

    This is the second part of a three-part series written by Iris van den Linden and Amber Striekwold. In this series, Iris and Amber fashions a conceptual perfume of Oosterdok. Like every perfume

  • A warehouse ablaze

    Fire of 1791

    It is true that many of the scents that infected the Amsterdam air was by way of the VOC/WIC ships coming to and from the harbour. In a way, a major import – albeit unintentional- from these...

  • Aboard a passenger-liner-turned-hospital-ship

    The Oranje

    Smelly business did not remain in the pre-modern era. It is very much a modern phenomenon just as well. One point of interest for us scent-hunters is the MS Oranje. A 20,166-ton ship, in its hay-day...

  • Of Urine, Pickled Leather, and Tanneries

    A Case of Scent Zoning in 17th-century Amsterdam

    Once a small port-city, Amsterdam began to resemble the bustling city we know today by the early modern era. In fact, during Amsterdam’s “Golden Age”—between 1585 and 1663—the city population grew...

  • Lemon & scurvy

    An ironic antidote

    Imagine a state whereby every sensory experience you came to offended your senses. Trees smelling of fecal matter. The taste of poultry almost poisons you. Greenery from vegetation is so disagreeably...

  • The Magic of Cacao

    Of flowers, rituals, and sensations

    The origins of chocolate -this sublime natural creation- are traced back to the Ulua river valley in Honduras around 1100 BCE (Norton, 2008). The Olmec community or their descendants provided the...

  • Class & Smell

    What the Golden Age of Amsterdam and Parasite have in common

    Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite was not only the first South Korean film to be nominated for the Best Picture award, as well as six other Oscar nominations, it has just become the first film not in the...

  • "Great and ghastly stench"

    Dutch whaling industry in the 17th century

    “Lying in the bay were five large whale carcases which still had not been flensed through lack of manpower. There was a "great and ghastly stench" and, after a few fine days, the sun had...

  • Dutch Courage and the Amsterdam Spirit

    Botanicals in Jenever

    Inspired by all the quarantinis (that is a quarantine martini) recipes plastered across social media in the past few months, it bodes to dive into the history of Jenever as Amsterdam’s--and the...

  • Plantable gold

    An era of colonial agriculture

    One of the main culprits of contemporary scent is the local ecosystem. But with a globalized approach to importation and exportation, our locality not only sports indigenous flora but foreign ones...

  • The Amsterdam Koffiehuis

    What does gentrification smell like?

    Amsterdam is undergoing a continual process of gentrification. Opinions towards gentrification are far from homogenous and have been extensively reported on, but one question rarely asked of this...
  • Oosterdok

    A brief history of Oosterdok

    Changes throughout the centuries

    Oosterdok is a body of water in Amsterdam. Nowadays, the eastern dock plays a crucial role in adorning the Amsterdam skyline. It features proud contemporary architecture that stand stark against the...

  • Tobacco’s Transculturation

    From a Botanical Specimen to a Powdered Delight

    The arrival of tobacco in Europe has been traced back to the late 15 th century, when the Botanist Francisco Hernández de Toledo brought the first seeds to Spain as part of the colonial mission. The...
  • Oosterdok Irina Ridzuan

    The Aroma of Amsterdam's Chinatown: Peanuts

    The humble beginnings of Chinatown Amsterdam is inextricably linked to a surprising aroma: peanuts!  

  • Gunpowder: Fireworks and Fatality

    The smell of fireworks, of the sulfur within the ignited gunpowder, permeates the streets of Amsterdam as the Central European Time Zone welcomes in the new year. Illegal for the public’s usage at...

created Irina Ridzuan modified Branko Kleynen

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