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  •  Olfactory Oosterdok
  • Partners
  • Open Call
  • Bibliography
  • Oosterdok Irene de Craen

    The dirtiest street in the Netherlands

    A busy city is often a smelly city...
  • Geur
  • Geschiedenis
  • Oosterdok Irene de Craen

    We Have Never Smelled Modern

    ‘Smell reveals the artificiality of modernity; it shows following Latour that we have never been really modern (1993). The modern project to create a pure, rational order of things is undermined by...
  • Oosterdok Irene de Craen

    Warehouse of smells

    The once massive warehouse of the VOC on Oostenburg Island must have been an extreme olfactory experience...

  • Scented encounters

    Considered the first comprehensive exploration of the history of scent, the book Aroma. The cultural history of smell opens with the sentence: ‘Smell is a social phenomenon, invested with particular...
  • 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...

  • A Mélange of Foul Odours

    The Smell of Discovery

    One of the main purposes of the Oosterdok was the building of ships. For a short while in history, before the English took that questionable title, the Dutch were the largest colonial power in the...

  • A Deterrence of Sight and Smell

    The gallows field of Amsterdam

    The small headland on the north side of the IJ, opposite the Oosterdok, used to be the location of the gallows field of Amsterdam. Criminals sentenced to death were executed on Dam Square, and as an...
  • Oosterdok Irina Ridzuan

    The Aroma of Amsterdam's Chinatown: Peanuts

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

  • 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...
  • Oosterdok

    Partners

    Olfactory History of Oosterdok

    Bureau Marineterrein City Archeologist Jerzy Gawronski Expeditie Oosterdok NEMO Science Museum OBA (Amsterdam Public Library) Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  • 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...
  • Mediamatic Biotoop, Oosterdok

    Open Call Olfactory History of Oosterdok

    Next deadline beginning 2020

    In 2022, a large exhibition will take place in Amsterdam about the Olfactory History of Oosterdok, the eastern part of the old harbour of the city. Related to this exhibition, Mediamatic is issuing...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • "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...

  • 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...

  • Smoke, Snuff, and the Cosmos

    Tobacco in Amerindian Rituals

    Before tobacco entered the European markets as a luxury good, particularly among the elites of the 16 th century, it already had a thousand-year long history among the Amerindian communities, which...

  • 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...

  • 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.”...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • Smell of the exotic

    Rare animals in Amsterdam

    The exotic animal trade: one might not think too much of its significance to our ecosystem. Yet, it is very much “alive and kicking” and becoming a real threat in the global world. Recently, the...

  • "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...

  • 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

  • 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...

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