Sissel Tolaas studied chemistry, art, linguistics, and mathematics in Oslo, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Oxford. Since the 1990s, she has developed various smell archives and for seven years underwent an intensive smell training. One of her first urban olfactory research projects was presented at the 3rd Berlin Biennale in 2004. For that, Tolaas systematically researched and recreated the smells of the Mitte, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Reinickendorf, and Charlottenburg neighborhoods of Berlin.
Shortly afterwards, she founded the Smell Re_search Lab, which is still located in Berlin-Wilmersdorf and is supported by the international company IFF (International Flavors and Fragrances).
Tolaas calls herself a “professional in-betweener” and is at home both in science and in art. She took part in the Art & Science project “Synthetic Aesthetics,” worked with scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics to develop a vocabulary to give precise verbal expression to smells, and has shown her work worldwide, including most recently at the Riga Biennale (2018), the Museum of Modern Art (2016/2010), the Hamburger Bahnhof (2017/2004), the Museum Tinguely (2015) and the Stiftung Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna (2017–19).