At 17 I associated Sydney with things I didn’t want to do and places I didn’t want to be. I worked for a telephone company in Sydney’s CBD and I got to know the subterranean spaces as I travelled from site to site, basement to basement. I could virtually travel from one end of the CBD to the other without coming above ground. I got to know all the secret passageways and short cuts, which all kind of looked the same but the smell defined each place. I guess I started to build up a map of Sydney based on scent. Staying underground meant not having to deal with people and noise.

When I arrived in Sydney I wasn’t interested in the place at all, but my memory of this time was bound up with sight and sound. Thinking about smell in terms of the this memory tonight, I don’t feel any of the negative connotations and each component feels novel and nostalgic.

SCENT

Bogon moths, stale urine, fresh urine, train brakes (acrid), kitchen, cooking, damp earthy cave smell, plastic.

By

Baldric