Ueda Maki
Ueda Maki is a pioneering and leading figure in the field of olfactory art, which uses scent as a medium of artistis expression. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2024 Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award. Based on the island of Ishigaki, she is engaged in researching and promoting olfactory art, and exhibits internationally.
Year Selected
2025
Project
Making the Invisible Visible: Smell and Air as Commons
Summary
This multifaceted project takes smell as a starting point for exploring the notion of the air we breathe as part of the commons, and attempts to make it possible to see and experience the air. The project comprises three parts: offering opportunities to learn in the form of lectures and workshops; conducting research to make the olfactory visible by using technology to measure the highly subjective sense that is smell; and creating and exhibiting spatial works that express air circulation. In this way, the project takes the air, the medium by which humans and all living creatures exchange manifold kinds of information, as a stepping stone to encourage us to think about biodiversity and biomes, and to inspire new ways of looking at the world.
Profile
Ueda Maki
Olfactory artist
Since 2005, Ueda Maki has explored the intersection of scent and art, creating works that use smell and becoming a pioneering figure in the field of olfactory art. Since 2009, she has taught at institutions around the world including the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, nurturing a new generation of olfactory artists. Nominated five consecutive times for the Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent at the Art and Olfaction Awards―an international hallmark of olfactory art―and winner of the award in 2022, Ueda is also a recipient of the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award 2024. Currently based on the island of Ishigaki, she runs an olfactory art laboratory engaging in education and tourism while exhibiting and running workshops around the world.
Art Incubation Program
One of CCBT’s core programs, the Art Incubation Program provides opportunities for creative talent to undertake new projects and makes those processes accessible to the public, facilitating forms of artistic expression, exploration, and action that change our city for the better. Selected through an open call, five artist fellows will act as CCBT partners, developing their projects, making the creative process public, exhibiting the results, and holding workshops and talks.
▶︎Details: CCBT Art Incubation Program
