Tracing the Invisible: A Scent Walk Through Chinatown

What if the city’s truest stories aren’t what you see, but what you smell? Urban smellscapes are layered records of decay and consumption, labour and livelihood, class and power. In this immersive, sensory-led experience, participants will explore Chinatown through its invisible scents. From wet markets and thrift shops to medicine halls and old strata malls, we will excavate invisible lives and translate sensations into language through guided smelling, writing and drawing.

Writer and artist Juliette Yu-Ming Lizeray designed this walk inspired by how snakes perceive the world through scent rather than sight. It is an invitation to experience the city differently – to unlock memory and emotion, and to cultivate attentiveness not just to surfaces, but to traces.