Sissel Tolaas has been working, researching and experimenting intensely on the subject of smell since 1990. Tolaas is considered an authority in the field of this scientific and artistic research, with important collaborations and exhibitions including: dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel; MOMA New York; MOMA, San Francisco; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Serpentine Galleries, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Venice Biennale; Kochi Biennale; TBA21, Thyssen Bornemisza Art Contemporary; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; Art Institute of Chicago; Architecture Biennale 2015, Seoul, Shanghai & Venice; Time Museum, Guangzhou; Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen.
Her projects and research are among others in the field of: climate; heritage; inequality; geopolitics; sensory ecology; biology; archeology; anthropology; Anthropocene.  Tolaas has also worked with leading universities and research institutions and platforms including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Max Planck Institute; Nanyang Technical; Harvard University and Oxford University.
Among the numerous prizes awarded to Tolaas are mentioned: CEW New York 2014 Chemical Innovation Award; Rouse Foundation Award 2009, Harvard GSD; Ars Electronica Award 2010; Synthetic Biology / Synthetic Aesthetics, Stanford University, Oxford University & Harvard Medical school, 2010-2011-2012-2014. In 2004 Tolaas founded, with the support of IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.), the SMELL RE_searchLab in Berlin, a research laboratory  whose goal is to record, replicate, investigate  smell molecules and smell complex structure and to propose an alternative communication system: CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION. Tolaas has built multiple archives over the last 25 years, including: thousands of recordings of complex smell sources and individual molecules; language and para-phonetics sound; coding and function. Tolaas’ Mission: “There is a whole World to smell & a whole World to educate how to smell.”

Sissel Tolaas’ Digital Fellowship is part of the artist’s physical research project commissioned by the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, in the context of the Pompeii Commitment. Archaeological Matters 2022-2023 exhibition and collection programme.