Maja Smrekar was born 1978 in Slovenia. She graduated from the Sculpture Department and earned a Master’s Degree from the Department of Video, both at The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Smrekar's work combines practice based artistic research exploring the potentials of current technologically and scientifically rooted processes and materials, such as from ecology, ethology, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, reproductive medicine, molecular biology, etc. She has been using her artistic voice to speak on ecofeminism, inter-species relationships, posthumanism, technology and ideological structures in society. Her practice has allowed her to lead strong collaborations in developing productions that include sculpture, cross-conceptual staging of hybrid art, performance, installation, site-specific art, performative photography, drawing and video as well as contributions to knowledge exchanged within lectures, talks and texts.

With twenty solo exhibitions, and over fifty group shows, her work has been exhibited in spaces such as: MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome (Italy), ZKM Karlsruhe (Germany), Musée de l`Homme (Paris, France), Kunsthalle Vienna, MAK Vienna, Kunsthaus Wien, Kunsthaus Bregenz (all Austria), Het Neuwe Institut (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), National Museum of Contemporary Art in Riga (Latvia), National Museum fo Contemporary Art Zagreb (Croatia), Center for Contemporary Art Laznia (Gdansk, Poland), Center for Fine Arts BOZAR (Brussels, Belgium). She has been collaborating with the L'internationale platform consisting of the following European museums: Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana (MG + MSUM, Ljubljana, Slovenia); Museum Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain); MACBA - Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (Spain); Museum Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (Belgium); Museum of Modern Art Warsaw (Poland), SALT (Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey) and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands). She exhibited at art venues such as: Kapelica Gallery (Slovenia), Aksioma Project Space (Slovenia), Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing (China), Zuercher Gallery / Frieze New York and EFA Project Space New York (both USA), Art Laboratory Berlin (Germany), Gallery Corner College (Zürich, Switzerland), Milton Keynes Gallery (United Kingdom), RMIT Gallery Melbourne (Australia), Display Project Space in collaboration with Jindřich Chalupecký Society (Prague, Czech Republic), and at festivals: Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Transmediale (Berlin, Germany), Click festival (Elsinore, Denmark), Rencontres Bandits-Mages (Bourges, France).

She has been an artistic collaborator of art and science production platforms such as Kapelica Gallery – Kersnikova Institute (Slovenia), Aksioma Institute (Slovenia), Blessed Foundation and a/political Foundation (both United Kingdom), Quo Artis Foundation (Spain), The Culture Yard (Denmark), Ars Electronica (Austria), Cultivamos Cultura (Portugal). Over the last 15 years, her interdisciplinary collaborations have included institutions, such as: The Institute of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, Laboratory of Optics and Radiation, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Laboratories for Biocybernetics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Department of Biotechnology and Department for Forestry and Renewable Resources at the Biotechnical Faculty (all University of Ljubljana), The Department of Freshwater and Terrestrial Ecosystems at the National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, Slovenia, The Department of Zoology at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, The JACANA Wildlife Studios, Saint Montaine, France, Center for Soft Robotics at the Biorobotics Section of The University of Southern Denmark.

Smrekar received the 1st prize at the Cynetart Festival 2012, awarded by the Hellerau European Centre for the Arts (Dresden / Germany); Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica Festival 2013 (Linz / Austria); Golden Bird Award 2013 (Ljubljana, Slovenia) and Trend 2017 Award for Visual Creativity (Ljubljana / Slovenia). In 2016, she was nominated for The New Technological Art Award (Ghent, Belgium). In 2017 she was the recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica - Golden Nica 2017 in the Hybrid Arts Category (Linz / Austria). In 2018, she was the recipient of the Prešeren Foundation Award, the highest award for artistic achievements of the Republic of Slovenia (Ljubljana / Slovenia). In 2020 and 2021, she was the Science Breakthrough of the Year finalist within the Science in the Arts category of the Falling Walls Foundation / Berlin Science Week (Germany). In 2021, she was the recipient of the Oton Župančič Award, the highest recognition of the City of Ljubljana for creations in the field of art (Ljubljana / Slovenia). In 2023 she was the winner of the Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus grant for contemporary artists by the Hessian State Capital of Wiesbaden and the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (Germany).

In 2019, her work was included in the documentary DAS ECHO DER ZUKUNFT: Kunst mit Genen und künstlicher Intelligenz (EHO OF THE FUTURE: Art with genes and artificial intelligence), filmed in the production of Hessischen Rundfunk Frankfurt for ARTE Television, where her work was presented along with the works of Charlotte Jarvis, Tomas Saraceno, Trevor Paglen, Chronos Quartet and Marina Abramović.

Her work has been among others a part of the Arteast 2000+ collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+ MSUM), Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (Croatia), The Blessed Foundation (London, United Kingdom), The Quo Artis Foundation (Barcelona, Spain), Palazzo Taffini Museum (Savigliano, Italy), etc.

She was a guest Artistic Teacher at The University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria; The Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic; The Faculty of Fine Arts Belgrade, Serbia; and a guest lecturer at Media Arts and Technology Program at The University of Santa Barbara, USA; The Laboratory for Interface Culture, University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria; The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic; ITMO University in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation and IAAC - Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Since 2023, she has been an Assistant Professor at the The Fine Art and Design Academy at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

She was a recipient of a yearly Fellowship awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia in 2010, 2014 and 2019. In 2020 / 2021 she was invited as a resident within the program called STUDIOTOPIA - Art Meets Science in the Anthropocene - a platform composed of the following institutions: BOZAR and GLUON Arts Centres in Brussels, Ars Electronica Linz, Cultural Center Cluj, Romania, Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Onassis Stegi Athens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Laboral Gijon. In 2020 she received a fellowship from an international consortium CreaTures for the research-based art project reProductive narratives (funded by EU / Horizont 2020). In 2014 she collaborated with the JACANA Wildlife Studios, Saint Montaine, France, at the residency supported by the CNC – center National du cinéma et de l’image animée. In previous years she was also a guest of the following residencies: Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany (2024), Nordic Artist ́s Center Dale, Fjyler, Norway (2017); Cultivamos Cultura, Beja, Portugal (2017); Freies Berlin Museum, Germany (2015/2016); l'association PiNG, Nantes, France (2015); Freies Theater Innsbruck, Austria (2015) and HACKTERIAlab, Romainmôtier, Yverdon, Lausanne and Zürich, Switzerland (2011).

Her work has been written about in press and scholarly contexts: including Art Agenda, The New Scientist, Oxford Art Journal, Artlink Magazine, and publications and books such as: Vid Simoniti: Artists Remake the World: A Contemporary Art Manifesto, YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS (2023); Natasha Lushetich: Posthuman Agency as Influenced Intra-Action; Parallax Magazine, Volume 28, Issue 4 (2022); Deirdre Madeleine Smith, Heavenly Beings: Art Facing the Animal in Ljubljana, issue no. 107 Famille | Family, Esse - magazine on contemporary arts and multidisciplinary practices (2022); Milena Dimitrova, Emergency Exit; De-Growth, Springerin, Issue 30/2022; TACTICAL ENTANGLEMENTS: AI Art, Creative Agency, and the Limits of Intellectual Property, dr. Martin Zeilinger, MESON PRESS, July 2021; L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE: DEGROWTH AND PROGRESS, ed. Sara Buraya Boned and Ida Hiršenfelder, RESOURCES – L’INTERNATIONALE BOOKS, February 2021; Vid Simoniti, The Living Image in Bio-Art and in Philosophy, Oxford Art Journal, Volume 42, Issue 2, August 2019, OXFORD ART JOURNAL | OXFORD ACADEMIC; Obieg – a quarterly magazine on art and culture, Internationale, 44 days, Issue No. 15/2020, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland; Audronė Žukauskaitė, Hybrids, Chimeras, Aberrant Nuptials: New Modes of Cohabitation in Bioart, Vol. 31, No. 1. 2019, 2-7, Theatre and Continental Philosophy, Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars; Eva Smrekar, K-9_topology, MASKA Magazine 34, Winter 2019, Slovenia; Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp, Becoming-with-Animal: Cultivating a Feminist Understanding of Human-Animal Transformation in Contemporary Performance Art, Master’s Thesis | Contemporary Theatre Dance & Dramaturgy Utrecht University | May 2019; Supervisor: Dr. Sigrid Merx | Second Reader: Dr. Laura Karreman; Robyn Lee, Ethics and Politics of Breastfeeding: Power, Pleasure, Poetics, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS, Kanada 2018; Mojca Kumerdej: Inner Edges and Borders of Culture, Politics of Life and Death Section // May 2018, L'internationale: PLATFORM CONSTELLATION OF EUROPEAN MUSEUMS; Polona Tratnik, Art in Contemporaneity, Orion Art (2018), Paperback; Olga Majcen Linn, Subversiveness in Hybrid Art Practices (42-65), Život umjetnosti: časopis o modernoj i suvremenoj umjetnosti i arhitekturi, Vol. 102 No. 1, 2018; Susan Merril Squier, Epigenetic Landscapes: Drawings as Metaphor, DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS, USA, 2017; Vid Simoniti, ‘Artistic Research at the Edge of Science.’ OAR: The Oxford Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform Issue 1 (2017); Polona Tratnik, Maja Smrekar’s Biopolitical Manifesto from a Philosophical Perspective, MonitorISH (2017), XIX/2, 65–80; Jessica Ullrich, Experiment: Tierstudien10/2016, October 2016, NEOFELIS VERLAG, BERLIN, Germany; Vera H.J.R. Weetzel, Bioart interventions into the biotechnology discourses on hormones – MA Thesis, 18-08-2016 Gender Studies MA, Utrecht University; dr. Monika Bakke, BIOTRANSFIGURACJE, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Seria filozofia i logika, nr 111, Poznan 2015; William Myers, BioArt: Altered Realities, THAMES & HUDSON, London 2015, United Kingdom.

Maja Smrekar lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

MAJA SMREKAR

artist & researcher

www.majasmrekar.org

E-mail: maja.smrekar@gmail.com

skype: Maja Smrekar

phone: + 386 41 813 293