Follow your nose round Auld Reekie

From breweries to zoo creatures – artist creates map of Edinburgh by charting the city's smells

THE pungent smell of a brewery, the pong of penguins at the zoo and the whiff of boys' primary school toilets - it must be Edinburgh.

After months of stopping strangers in the streets and asking them about the city's unique aromas, Kate McLean has produced a "smell map" of the capital.

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She has now produced a collection of nine bottled smells which "capture" the essence of the city and is unveiling her "sensory map" audience participation installation at this year's Edinburgh College of Art degree show. Visitors are invited to open the bottles and sniff the city.

They can also locate the smells on an Ordnance Survey map which reveals how far their pungency ranges, although McLean admits this is not an exact science.

As well as the brewery, the boys' toilets and the Edinburgh zoo penguins, the six other smells on the list are: cherry blossom in the Meadows, underground city and vaults, fish-and-chip shops, cut grass, coffee shops and the sea and beach.

McLean said: "The whole idea came from walking and running around Edinburgh when I arrived here two years ago. All my senses were alive and I was taking it all in for the first time".

She then turned her kitchen into a science lab and swotted up on recreating the smells in small brown glass bottles.

For the boys' toilets she used ammonia and other chemicals while penguin poo was reproduced after researching their diet and pounding down scraps of squid and squid skin from a fishmonger.

But her favourite smell - and the first which she noticed - was the brewery. "It is amazing, not just because I like the smell but because when you talk to people you get the most beautiful history with them describing the days when there seemed to be 'a cloud of malt hanging over the city.'

"That smell has the most resonance and you smell it in more places in Edinburgh than anything else."

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McLean, 46, a former IT teacher, said the project also forces people to use one of the five senses which is often neglected but which stirs memories. "The idea for the boys' toilets came from a wine merchant in his 50s in Comiston Road, Morningside. I was telling him I was collecting Edinburgh smells and trying to define what makes Edinburgh unique. His face just lit up and he said the boys' toilets at South Morningside primary had such an impact on him and it was well-known in the area how much they stank in those days.

"Then a Polish worker immediately said that for him Edinburgh was the sea and the beach and that he could smell the salt and the sea in the wind the minute he got off the plane."McLean hopes to be able to turn her project into a commercial enterprise.

While the city she dreams of mapping is Rio de Janeiro, which hosts the Olympics in 2016, she says she would love to get commissions to "map" other cities in Scotland.

She added: "Cities such as Glasgow and Aberdeen have their own unique smells too. Friends have described the musty smell of the Glasgow underground. I always notice the smell of the latest perfume women are wearing when I walk down Buchanan Street from Queen Street station. And the smell of old central heating systems and pipes in the museums.

"Aberdeen evokes the smells of the fish market, the exotic plants in the Winter Gardens and the very distinctive smell of fresh "rowies" or butteries being baked when you're walking home from the pub or a night out."

Michael Fraser, head of design at Family Communications, an Edinburgh-based advertising agency, said: "I like the idea of this being used to promote a city and don't recall it being done before. I can see it as a competition or a campaign which would definitely get people talking and provoke debate.

"It would appeal to different age groups and sexes who would pick up on different things."

Councillor Steve Cardownie, the city's festival events champion, said: "This is fantastic and sounds great fun. I would have suggested the biscuit smell at Sighthill if she'd asked me. Smell is one of the senses we ignore, especially in art forms and she should be commended."

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Malcolm Roughead, the chief executive of VisitScotland, said: "As highlighted in our long-running 'Senses' marketing campaign, smells - along with sights and sounds - play a huge part in the overall holiday experience, be it heather, whisky or fresh air at the seaside.

"This is certainly an interesting project and we would welcome anything that helps to promote Scotland in a positive way."

McLean was one of the finalists in the 10,000 Deutsche Bank Design Awards 2011 and in March won the Scottish Institute for Enterprise "New Ideas" award.

Her sensory map forms part of the art college's Degree Show 2011, at Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, which runs until next Sunday.

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