View over Peckham

Multi-sensory walk through Peckham

July 2016, Peckham Rye Station

How the walk will work:

  • We will walk as a group of maximum 25 people along a fixed route through Peckham, starting at Peckham Rye station and back again.
  • You will be asked to first explore the route through your sense of sound. We’ll take around 40 minutes to walk in silence then stop for a discussion about what we’ve heard and felt.
  • On the way back you will uncover how the same route smells. You are asked to leave your assumptions and embarrassment at home and come out to sniff the city! This sniffing activity is always surprising and attracts curiosity from onlookers! If you have concerns about being seen sniffing in public we have dog masks that you can wear and keep. We will describing and sharing the perceptions with others and learning about your local neighbourhood through smell.
  • The walks will take a maximum of 2 hours in total.

The walk is inspired by our smellscapes and soundscapes event, which led an audience member and resident to suggest a smell and sound wander through Peckham. Southwark Council have kindly funded the walk.

Walk leaders

Kate McLean is a smellmap designer and mapper of urban smellscapes in cities around the world, interested in the fine-grained human-centred olfactory perception of the city and the methods by which we can share this highly nuanced information. Data crowdsourced on smellwalks are converted to smellmaps, found on her website.

Christopher Wood is a sound artist whose practice centres on the relationship between place, technology and narrative. His sound art work has been exhibited internationally.