Cecilia Bembibre

Project Title 

Smells of Heritage 

Background & Summary of Project

Smells affect the way we experience the world and can carry important information about places and objects. This project researches the identification and documentation of heritage smells, conducting VOC detection and analysis using solid-phase micro-extraction plus gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and gas chromatography Time of Flight Analysis (GC-TOF) with olfactometric detection (GC-O). Trained and untrained evaluation panels are also used to assess human perception of smells. 

Partners

• The National Trust
• Odournet

Publications 

Bembibre, Cecilia, M. Strlič, Smell of heritage: A framework for the identification, analysis and archival of historic odours, Heritage Science (2017) 5:2

Bembibre Jacobo, C; Barratt, S; Vera, L; Strlič, M, Smelling the past: a case study for identification, analysis and archival of historic pot-pourri as a heritage smell. In: Bridgland, J, (ed.) ICOM-CC 18th Triennial Conference Preprints, Copenhagen, 4-8 September 2017. (pp. p. 1601). Paris: International Council of Museums

Contact

Email: cecilia.bembibre.13@ucl.ac.uk
Twitter: @ucqbbem