Maki Ueda (born 1974, Tokyo) is a Japanese artist. She is currently based in Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan.[1][2]

Artist portrait of Maki Ueda
Maki Ueda presenting at the Experimental Scent Summit 2017

Career

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Maki Ueda studied media art under Masaki Fujihata at The Environmental Information Department (B.A. 1997, M.A. 1999) at Keio University, Japan.

Ueda is known for her work that focuses attention on fragrance with minimal influence from the other senses,[2] and is considered an important pioneer in the medium of olfactory art.

Her 'Olfactory Labyrinths' series consists of installations that must be navigated by nose alone. Thus the participant must rely on their experience of smell without other sensorial inputs.

Contributing to a show called “If There Ever Was: An Exhibition of Extinct and Impossible Smells,” at the Reg Vardy Gallery in Sunderland, England in 2009, Ueda's piece “ summoned the body odor of political suspects in East Germany, carefully stored in jars by the Stasi in order to track them someday with dogs.”[3]

In 2011, Ueda was invited to be a guest curator[4] for the Palm Top Theater exhibition for V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, Netherlands.[5]

Ueda is also known for her work with Kodo, educating people about the practice while teaching about olfactory games with her course Smell and Art at the ArtScience Interfaculty program of the Royal Academy of Art and Royal Conservatoire in the Hague, Netherlands. The course ran between 2009 and 2018. In the Olfactory Games curriculum, she drew from traditional Japanese scent games known as Kōdō, taking their conceptual and abstract approach to the medium of smell to extrapolate other types of game play. [6]

Awards and recognition

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Maki Ueda has been nominated for the Art and Olfaction Awards Sadakichi Award for Experimental Work with Scent on multiple occasions. She was nominated for the following works: 'The Juice of War' (2016), 'Olfactory Games' (2018), 'Tangible Scents: Composition of Rose in the Air' (2019), 'Olfactory Labyrinth V. 5: Invisible Footprints' (2020). [7]

Maki Ueda was nominated for The World Technology Awards (Category: Art) in 2019.[8] She received the POLA Arts Foundation grant in 2007.[9]

References

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  1. ^ "Maki Ueda (JPN)". Ram Foundation. Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  2. ^ a b Kiniry, Laura (22 December 2020). "This Holiday Season, Travel With Your Nose". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  3. ^ Burr, Chandler (19 February 2009). "Whole Lot of Non-Scents". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 26 November 2022. Retrieved 2021-07-01.
  4. ^ "Maki Ueda". V2_Lab for the Unstable Media.
  5. ^ "About". V2_Lab for the Unstable Media.
  6. ^ Ueda, Maki. "Overview of Olfactory Games 2009-2018". Smell and Art. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  7. ^ "Finalists - The 7th Art and Olfaction Awards 2020 - Sadakichi Award". Art and Olfaction Awards. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  8. ^ "The World Technology Summit & Awards 2009". The World Technology Summit & Awards 2009. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021.
  9. ^ "公益財団法人ポーラ美術振興財団". www.pola-art-foundation.jp.