Maki Ueda (artist)

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, 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.”{{Cite news |last=Burr |first=Chandler |date=19 February 2009 |title=Whole Lot of Non-Scents |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/style/tmagazine/22burr.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |access-date=2021-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221126013350/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/style/tmagazine/22burr.html |archive-date=26 November 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}

In 2011, Ueda was invited to be a guest curator{{Cite web|url=https://v2.nl/archive/people/maki-ueda|title=Maki Ueda|website=V2_Lab for the Unstable Media}} for the Palm Top Theater exhibition for V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, Netherlands.{{Cite web|url=https://v2.nl/organization|title=About|website=V2_Lab for the Unstable Media}}

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. {{cite web |last1=Ueda |first1=Maki |title=Overview of Olfactory Games 2009-2018 |url=http://smellart.blogspot.com/2018/04/ |website=Smell and Art |access-date=8 July 2021}}

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). {{Cite web |title=Finalists - The 7th Art and Olfaction Awards 2020 - Sadakichi Award |url=http://www.artandolfactionawards.org/2020overview/2020-finalists/ |access-date=20 September 2022 |website=Art and Olfaction Awards}}

Maki Ueda was nominated for The World Technology Awards (Category: Art) in 2019.{{Cite web |title=The World Technology Summit & Awards 2009 |url=https://secure.wtn.net/summit2009/nominees.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181305/https://secure.wtn.net/summit2009/nominees.html |archive-date=9 July 2021 |website=The World Technology Summit & Awards 2009}}

She received the POLA Arts Foundation grant in 2007.{{Cite web|url=http://www.pola-art-foundation.jp/english.html|title=公益財団法人ポーラ美術振興財団|website=www.pola-art-foundation.jp}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ueda, Maki}}

Category:1974 births

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century Japanese women artists

Category:Artists from Tokyo

Category:Keio University alumni

Category:21st-century Japanese artists

Category:Olfactory art