Material Culture: Smell Sketches & Creative Expression

​We constantly use matter – things and stuff – to help us communicate meaning in everyday life. It is infinitely better and more reliable to go directly to the source: to real people – if we want to understand them and their material cultures.

​In hard to research topics, such as personal relationships with fragrance (forged in the moment and over a lifetime) we need to get creative.

​Art within qualitative methodology can capture the expressions of ambiguous ideas and experiences. It’s one of the most rewarding techniques to use and reveals some of the most meaningful and impactful insights.

​The act of painting what is smelt, smell sketches capture those ephemeral moments of smelling a scent, along with all the subjective experiences that allow the participant to make sense of what they smell. Lauren will take you through the act of creating smell sketches, how to interpret art as data through a qualitative lens, and how to make artistic insight stick.

​About Lauren Greehy
Lauren is a qualitative researcher with a love for creative methods and rigorous design, never hiding from a complex challenge. She’s helped clients navigate unique challenges within FMCG, health and beauty, and retail brands locally and globally.

​She’s at her most disruptive pushing boundaries to uncover those nuggets of insight that otherwise remain hidden and distilling compelling stories. Beyond work, you’ll find her haunting department stores sniffing the latest fragrance launches (a consequence of her PhD, ‘Making Sense of Perfume’).