Olfactory Factory

Ok y'all, here's the deal with this picture. We were walking through Washington Square in the Village and saw these two women dressed in nurses uniforms having blindfolded people smell things. I was, to say the least, curious.

We sat watching them go through this with a people and the routine was the same. The person would sit down and put on the blindfold. This woman would pass an object under the subject's nose and ask them to relay an memories that the smell evoked. The other women would then take notes on her clip-board. The whole thing was very official feeling.

Most people tried simply to identify the smell but the women insisted that the object of the exercise was to induce scent memories and to create smell experiences.

The objects were from all over the world. When I donned the blindfold she had me smell chrysanthemum, some Japanese ink, a marker, and a number of other exotic and not-so-exotic objects.

Mostly though, the objects are from Baltimore, like the women. It turns out that they have set up shop in Japan, Russia, and now in New York City. They were quite excited to hear that we were from DC but were most interested in hearing from New Yorkers about what smells defined New York for them. With this data she hopes to make an olfactory map of the city.