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 explores themes of belonging, becoming, family, home and coloniality of neoliberal politics, challenging socially and politically fixed identities and notions of order. She integrates practice-based artistic research with contemporary technological and scientific processes, drawing on fields like ecology, ethology, AI, robotics, biotechnology, reproductive medicine, and molecular biology. Through her work, she addresses topics including ecofeminism, interspecies relationships, posthumanism, technology, and the ideological structures shaping society. Her interdisciplinary approach has fostered impactful collaborations, resulting in productions that span sculpture, hybrid art, performance, installation, site-specific art, performative photography, drawing, and video. She also contributes to knowledge exchange through lectures, talks, and texts.

With twenty solo exhibitions and over fifty group shows, Maja Smrekar’s work has been presented in institutions such as MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome (Italy), ZKM Karlsruhe (Germany), Musée de l’Homme (Paris, France), Kunsthalle Vienna, Kunsthaus Wien, Kunsthaus Bregenz (all Austria), Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (Germany), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), National Museum of Contemporary Art in Riga (Latvia), National Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (Croatia), Center for Contemporary Art Laznia (Gdańsk, Poland), Center for Fine Arts BOZAR (Brussels, Belgium), Färgfabriken Stockholm (Sweden), and the Center for Contemporary Art Montenegro. She has also collaborated with the L’internationale platform, which includes museums such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana (MG+MSUM, Slovenia), Museo 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). Her work has been exhibited at various art venues, including Kapelica Gallery and Aksioma Project Space (Slovenia), Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing (China), Zürcher Gallery at Frieze New York, EFA Project Space New York (USA), Art Laboratory Berlin (Germany), Gallery Corner College (Zürich, Switzerland), Milton Keynes Gallery (United Kingdom), RMIT Gallery Melbourne (Australia), and Display Project Space in collaboration with the Jindřich Chalupecký Society (Prague, Czech Republic). Additionally, Smrekar has participated in festivals such as Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Transmediale (Berlin, Germany), Click Festival (Elsinore, Denmark), and Rencontres Bandits-Mages (Bourges, France).

She has been an artistic collaborator with art production platforms, including A/POLITICAL (United Kingdom), Kapelica Gallery – Kersnikova Institute and Aksioma Institute (both Slovenia), Quo Artis Foundation (Spain), The Culture Yard (Denmark), Ars Electronica (Austria), Cultivamos Cultura (Portugal) and Blessed Foundation (United Kingdom). Over the past 15 years, her interdisciplinary collaborations have extended to leading academic and research 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, and the Departments of Biotechnology and Forestry and Renewable Resources at the Biotechnical Faculty (all part of the University of Ljubljana). She has also collaborated with the Department of Freshwater and Terrestrial Ecosystems at the National Institute of Biology in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the Department of Zoology at Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany), JACANA Wildlife Studios in Saint Montaine (France), and the Center for Soft Robotics at the Biorobotics Section of the University of Southern Denmark.

Maja Smrekar has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work. She won the 1st Prize at the Cynetart Festival 2012, awarded by the Hellerau European Centre for the Arts (Dresden, Germany), and received an Honorary Mention at the Ars Electronica Festival 2013 (Linz, Austria). In 2013, she was honored with the Golden Bird Award and, in 2017, the Trend Award for Visual Creativity, both in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2016, she was nominated for the New Technological Art Award (Ghent, Belgium). The following year, she received the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica in the Hybrid Arts Category (Linz, Austria). In 2018, Smrekar was awarded the Prešeren Foundation Award, the highest recognition for artistic achievements in the Republic of Slovenia (Ljubljana, Slovenia). In 2020 and 2021, she was a finalist for the Science Breakthrough of the Year in the Science in the Arts category, awarded by the Falling Walls Foundation during Berlin Science Week (Germany). In 2021, she received the Oton Župančič Award, the City of Ljubljana’s highest honor for achievements in the arts. Most recently, she was the winner of the Follow Fluxus – After Fluxus 2023 grant for contemporary artists, presented 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 is featured in collections, including the Arteast 2000+ collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) in Ljubljana (Slovenia), the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (Croatia), The Quo Artis Foundation (Barcelona, Spain), and the Palazzo Taffini Museum (Savigliano, Italy), among others.

She has served as a guest Artistic Teacher at The University of Applied Arts Vienna (Austria), The Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (Czech Republic), and The Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade (Serbia). Additionally, she has been a guest lecturer at institutions such as the Media Arts and Technology Program at The University of California, Santa Barbara (USA); the Laboratory for Interface Culture at the 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 in Barcelona (Spain). Since 2023, she has been an Assistant Professor of Sculpture and Contemporary Artistic Practices at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

Maja Smrekar was awarded annual Fellowships by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia in 2010, 2014, and 2019. In 2020/2021, she participated as a resident in the STUDIOTOPIA program, Art Meets Science in the Anthropocene, a platform involving institutions such as BOZAR and GLUON Arts Centres in Brussels (Belgium), Ars Electronica Linz (Austria), the Cultural Center in Cluj (Romania), Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk (Poland), Onassis Stegi in Athens (Greece), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands), and Laboral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial in Gijón (Spain). In 2020, she received a fellowship from the international CreaTures consortium for her research-based art project reProductive Narratives, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program. In 2014, she collaborated with JACANA Wildlife Studios in Saint Montaine (France) during a residency supported by CNC – Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée. Her further residency experiences include Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany (2024); The Blessed Foundation (London, UK), Nordic Artists’ Center Dale, Fjaler, Norway (2017); Cultivamos Cultura, Beja, Portugal (2017); Freies Museum Berlin, Germany (2015/2016); l'association PiNG, Nantes, France (2015); Freies Theater Innsbruck, Austria (2015); and HACKTERIAlab in Romainmôtier, Yverdon, Lausanne, and Zürich, Switzerland (2011).

Her work has been written about in press and scholarly contexts including KUNSTFORUM International, Art Agenda, The New Scientist, Oxford Art Journal, Artlink Magazine, Esse Journal, Springerin Magazine, and publications and books such as: Life Is Other: Thomas Feuerstein , Jens Hauser and Lucie Strecker: A/Biotic Entanglements in Art and Curating, Edition Angewandte 2025, Birkhäuser Verlag for University of Applied Arts Vienna; 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