Taking care of the olfactory dimension of heritage. About “The Odeuropa Smell Explorer. Explore Europe’s Olfactory Heritage” and “Encyclopedia of Smell History and Heritage”

Abstract

The article takes the form of a report on the measures taken under the Odeuropa project (ODEUROPA: Negotiating Olfactory and Sensory Experiences in Cultural Heritage Practice and Research, HORYZONT 2020), in particular those related directly to olfactory heritage. The author focuses on describing the measurable effects of said activities in the form of the Smell Explorer online search engine and the Encyclopedia of Smell History and Heritage. The project aimed to explore European olfactory heritage, as well as to develop effective methods of its preservation, its description in the broader context of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and targeted promotion. The project has now run its formal course. However, it can be considered that it is constantly at the stage of evaluation – the participants are publishing a growing body of review papers with a view to informing a broader research community of the methods employed, studies conducted, data collected, analyzed, and interpreted, as well as the research conclusions reached. The project has not been widely discussed in Poland to date – it touches not only on areas of study related to multisensory ethnography and anthropology but also, possibly above all, topics related to the history and cultural history of Europe, in order to enrich the same by accounting for the aspect of the continent’s olfactory heritage.