The “Smell of the Netherlands” bloomed from one of the 225 kinds of scent petals that rained throughout Gayil Nalls’s World Sensorium, Time Square, New York, the United States. The artist had asked governments to choose olfactory representations of their nations to compose this ephemeral sculpture. The Tulps are not particularly known for their bodily odor, which is quite mute for a floral family, rather smells of canal water, cannabis and cow dung might be what most Dutch are reminded of when thinking of their country. Thus for an event that symbolized the interaction of everyday human experiences across borders, the Tulp was perhaps not the most mundane nor familiar of Dutch smells. Nevertheless, the Tulp was chosen to represent the Netherlands so long as other countries remembered her faint odor, amidst all the headiness of other representatives she met and mingled with in creating a universal perfume.
Image source: https://worldsensorium.com/worldsensorium/f_main.htm