This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX.

I'm Lizzie Peabody.

Sissel Tolas is a professional smeller.

I learned how to turn on and of my nose and I train my nose every morning the way I train other organs and the other senses properly.

Sissel is a Berlin-based artist and scent evangelist.

Her morning routine includes smelling a wide array of

sense in her lab to keep her nose sharp. She spends a lot of time traveling the

world for her work. I just come back from the My own jungle in Mexico. I've been there for 10 days

days during research on the middle of the jungle.

When I'm in the field, I get dirty.

Some people bring souvenirs home from their work trips.

Sissel brings smells. people bring souvenirs home from their work trips.

Sistle brings smells.

Not only my body, but my clothes, my luggage

are still carrying traces from the field work

I've been doing for 10 days and I don't

clean it that quick because it's part of the process of understanding where I've just

been. Sissel primarily devotes her nose to art and her work has been displayed at museums around the world and at the 2012 London Olympics.

Sisl says she's not part bloodhound. People are just way better sniffers than they realize.

So we tend to kind of leave out smells. We don't sit around a dinner table to speak about

each other's smell. We speak about how we look like, yeah? And you know, we are missing

out a lot of important information by not engaging with the world using

...