Sissel Tolaas was born in Norway and is now based in Berlin. She has a background in chemistry, mathematics, languages and art, from the universities of Oslo, Warsaw, Moscow, St Petersburg and Oxford.
Tolaas has been working actively and has concentrated on the topic of SMELL since 1990, in different sciences, fields of art/design and other disciplines. She established the SMELL RE_searchLab Berlin for smell & communication/language, in January 2004, supported by IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.).
Her research has won recognition through numerous national and international scholarships, honours and prizes, and she has worked and is working with numerous companies and institutions, while actively participating in international colloquiums, conferences and networking and her projects and research have been presented in several major institutions. Tolaas has built up several smell archives, including an archive of 7000 real smells from all over the world. She is currently working on smell molecule preservation/conservation archives on the world’s oceans, decay in Detroit, historical venues and buildings in UK.
Since 2014 Tolaas has been involved with several start-ups in the fields of the senses and technology. Tolaas just launched the world’s first Smell Memory Kit.
There is a whole world to smell and a whole world to educate how to smell