Sydney Living Museums have just launched their Sydney Open program and the ‘inside look’ at Sydney’s heritage is now accessible for most people from wherever they are.
The one good thing covid did is level the access playing field so we now all know what if feels like for people with limited ability to experience the world around them. None of us could go anywhere or do anything and it was terrible. There is a really nice piece of writing on that subject that features scent and you can read it here.
In previous years I have gone to the Sydney Open events and I have to say it is much better to go inside the buildings and have a full sensory experience in places you don’t normally see. If that’s not possible then the digital stuff is the next best thing. It doesn’t really make you want to linger there though. Technology, even when it’s really good, is kind of annoying, and not at all like wandering around the harbour looking at the sculpture and all the nice houses and boats of the very rich people who live there like you do if you are actually physically going to the Sydney Theatre Company. We should keep in mind that we are very lucky being a harbour city because blue spaces are good for our health and make us feel better just by being in them. If you are somewhere where you can see and hear and smell the water you will probably feel better than you do at your computer. That’s just science.
The new Sydney Open audio tours are really good and because I’ve been working on my own version for scent tours of Sydney I thought I would hijack what they have done to include some scent thoughts.
If you want to do that too the first thing you need to do is download the Sydney Open app. Once you have it you can choose which area you would like to explore and everything will be explained in the app.
My scent walks will also include AR and I love the Google Arts and Culture app for AR type things because it’s so easy to use and has lots of amazing objects and paintings that you can call out of your mind or memory or google search :-) and put before you on your streetscape.
ANGEL PLACE
Can birds smell? It’s a great subject of debate for scientists but yes they can and it seems to be very important for navigation. In fact research found that pigeons couldn’t find their way home with synthetic scent cues rather than natural ones. I like to think that is true of humans too.
There’s not a lot in the way of flora to smell in Angel Place but the restaurant pictured above has real gardenias planted in boxes around their outdoor eating area which is a very nice touch. Gardenias smell so good and one hundred years ago men here may have worn them on their lapel.
Trying to smell your way around the city can feel like a tough exercise at first, especially in this time of hyper-sterilisation where the ‘bad smells’ are masked. This area is full of very nice cooking smells but if it’s very cold or you are not there at rush hour you might not be able to smell them. Totti’s at the entrance to Angel Place has a wood fired oven that smells so good and I’m always being enticed down those alleys because of it. If the aroma molecules aren’t in the air you should read the menus to find things you know have a strong scent. If you don’t know what those things smell like you should find out.
The J&M whisky bar has some delicious scented cocktails like the Smokey Chap.
Yesterday when I was at Angel Place a homeless man was sleeping near one of the bins and it smelled like urine and very terrible human greed and cruelty. That’s not a smell that belongs in our city.
I’m going to write more on my scent thoughts from the Open Sydney audio tour soon.