Sissel Tolaas

Some of the topics of concern in Tolaas’s work are:

In 2018 Tolaas is working on an archive of the world's oceans and a project on the morbidity and decay of Detroit. Since 2014 Tolaas has been active in several start-ups in the field of the senses. In 2016 Tolaas launched the world's first Smell Memory Kit; several other devices and sense tools are in the pipeline.

She has worked and is working with numerous companies and institutions; she participates actively in international colloquiums, conferences and networking. Her projects and research have been presented in institutions such as TED Global, US; Interactive Africa/Design Indaba, South Africa; What Design Can Do, Holland and Brazil; World Science Festival, New York; World Congress of Synthetic Biology, Stanford University; Documenta 13, Kassel Germany; MOMA New York; MOMA San Francisco; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Venice Biennale; Kochi Biennale; Liverpool Biennale; Sao Paulo Biennale; National Art Museum of China Beijing; Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; Art Institute of Chicago; Architecture Biennale 2015, Shanghai; Time Museum Guangzhou, Edinburgh International Fashion Festival 2012, Louisiana Museum, Denmark.

From her artist's statement about the installation the Fear of smell — the smell of Fear at the 2005 Tirana Biennale, Tolaas explains:

Her project Sweat Fear | Fear Sweat from 2005 examines the body odors of twenty men, all of whom have a severe phobia of other bodies. Their smells were collected and chemically reproduced. The simulated sweat molecules were painted onto the gallery walls using a micro-encapsulation process, where they became activated by touch.

Tolaas has completed 52 City SmellScape research projects since 1998, of, for and with major cities all over the world such as Paris, Stockholm, Kansas City, Kansas, & Kansas City, Missouri, Berlin, Oslo, London, Cape Town, Kochi, Istanbul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, Amman, New York Central Park and Seoul.

Tolaas is working actively on diverse aspects of the topic of scents. She began to concentrate on this in 1990, researching its importance in different sciences, fields of art /design and other disciplines. At that time she developed a "smell archive" in over 7000 airtight jars. In January 2004 Tolaas established the Smell Research Lab Berlin, for smell and communication / language, supported by IFF International Flavours and Fragrances. Her research has won recognition through numerous national and international scholarships, honours, and prizes including the 2014 CEW, New York award for chemistry & innovation; 2009 Rouse Foundation Award from Harvard University GSD; an honorary mention at the 2010 ArsElectronica in Linz, Austria; and the 2010-2011-2012-2014 Synthetic Biology / Synthetic Aesthetics Award from Stanford and Edinburgh Universities including a residency at Harvard Medical School. Tolaas founded the Institute of Functional Smells in 2010 (i.e. health, education, well-being) and in 2016 became a founding member of Future of Education, a collaboration with the Nanyang Technical University Singapore and The Future Education Platform, Berlin.

Sissel Tolaas was born in 1963 in Stavanger, Norway and is based in Berlin. Tolaas has a background in chemistry; mathematics, linguistics; languages and art; she studied at the universities of Oslo, Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Oxford.

Sissel Tolaas was born on June 21, 1961 in Stavanger, Norway.