Maki Ueda is an artist who incorporates the olfactory sense in art. She considers smell to be “new media". Believing that "fewer visuals = stronger olfactory experiences", she puts the emphasis on olfaction over the visual aspect in her work. She often uses scents to spark the imagination or to create perceptual confusion.

She has developed a unique combination of chemical and kitchen skills in order to extract the scents of daily life, including foods, ambient aromas, and bodily scents. She creates scents that capture childhood, identity, a mood, or a historical event. The results of her experiments take the form of olfactory installations and workshops.

Se currently researches the issues of movement and olfaction. The works includes “Olfactory Labyrihth” , “Deconstructing Chanel No. 5”, and “Invisible White”.

Maki Ueda studied media art under Masaki Fujihata at The Environmental Information Department (B.A. 1997 & M.A. 1999), Keio University, Japan. She received a grant from the Japanese government in 2000 and from the POLA Art Foundation in 2007. She has been based in The Netherlands since 2002. Nominated for The World Technology Awards Category: Art (NY, USA) in 2009.

She occasionally teaches and gives workshops on olfactory art at ArtScience Interfaculty of The Royal Academy of Art & Royal Conservatory The Hague (NL), and at Willem de Kooning Art Academy (NL). Her course is one of the world’s first olfactory art course.