Maki Ueda (JP/NL)
Olfactory Artist
Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1974. Currently based in Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan.
Olfactory artist Maki Ueda (JP/NL) focuses the spectator’s attention on her fragrant gestures by minimizing the influence of the other senses. Her current research explores olfaction in relation to space and movement resulting in strong, often universal, approaches. She focuses on the pure experience of a smell instead of a more contextual or narrative approach. In addition to her own creative work, she teaches courses on olfactory art at the ArtScience Interfaculty of The Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague (NL) since 2009.
She has developed a unique combination of chemical and kitchen skills in order to extract the scents of daily life, including foods, ambient aromas, and bodily scents. She creates scents that capture childhood, identity, a mood, or a historical event. The results of her experiments take the form of olfactory installations and workshops. She has inspired and influenced many olfactory artists for making her process and recipes “open source” on her blog, and became one of the most famous olfactory artists (listed on the wikipedia page “olfactory art“)
Maki Ueda studied media art under Masaki Fujihata at The Environmental Information Department (B.A. 1997, M.A. 1999), Keio University, Japan. She received a grant from the Japanese government in 2000 and from the POLA Art Foundation in 2007. She has been based in The Netherlands from 2000 till 2011. She learned perfumery at Grasse Institute of Perfumery in 2008.
She has been nominated for the Art and Olfaction Awards Sadakichi category, the world’s olfactory art hall of fame, for five consecutive years so far, winning in 2022.
Atelier and Online Academy: www.pepe.okinawa
Awards:
2009 – Nominated for The World Technology Awards Category: Art (NY, USA)
2016 – The 3rd Art and Olfaction Awards Finalist (Sadakichi Award) for ‘The Juice of War‘
2018 – The 5th Art and Olfaction Awards Finalist (Sadakichi Award) for ‘Olfactory Games‘, The Art and Olfaction Awards
2019 – The 6th Art and Olfaction Awards Finalist (Sadakichi Award) for ‘Tangible Scents – Composition of Rose in the Air‘
2020 – The 7th Art and Olfaction Awards Finalist (Sadakichi Award) for ‘Olfactory Labyrinth ver. 5‘
2022 – The 8th Art and Olfaction Awards Winner (Sadakichi Award) for ‘Viral Pafum‘
2023 – The 9th Art and Olfaction Awards Finalist (Sadakichi Award) for ‘Aerosculpture’
2024 – Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award (Japan)
Specialities:
• Olfactory installations (as well as site-specific and open-air installations)
• Perfume artworks
• Research on the sense of smell and other senses
• Olfactory performances
• Olfactory workshops (for both adults and children)
• Food art event/ws with the focus on the sense of smell and molecular gastronomy
• Teaching “olfactory art” at art schools and universities
