Maja Smrekar
K-9_topology: Hybrid Family
Maja Smrekar is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of art and technology. She studied sculpture (BA) and video (MA) at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. Her practice explores themes of belonging, family, memory, and the politics of life in contemporary society. Through research-based work, she addressies questions of interspecies relations, ecofeminism, and posthumanism. Smrekar has exhibited internationally at institutions including MAXXI (Rome), ZKM (Karlsruhe), BOZAR (Brussels), Färgfabriken Stockholm (Sweden), Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) and Museums of Contemporary Art in Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia), Podgorica (Montenegro), Riga Latvia). She is the recipient of awards such as the Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica and the Prešeren Foundation Award.
"K-9_topology" is a long-term research project(2013 2017), in which Maja Smrekar examined the co-evolution of humans and wolves, interspecies interdependence, and the political construction of family and care. The work engages human–dog relations as a framework for rethinking kinship beyond biological lineage and species boundaries. The project is informed by the artist’s personal background, growing up as an only child in a family that bred dogs, where early experiences of companionship with non-human animals shaped her understanding of belonging. The central performance called Hybrid Family was preceded by a 112-day preparatory process based on protocols for inducing lactation without pregnancy. By relocating lactation outside normative maternal frameworks, the work critically addresses the regulation of reproductive labor and the gendered body. Challenging the Cartesian division between human / nonhuman, nature / culture, the work aligns with posthuman and ecofeminist thought.
courtesy Maja Smrekar
Format
Research Project
Document media
Video, colour, sound, 12.39 min
Issue date
2016
To be seen in
re.act.feminism #4 - Archival Chain Reactions, MSUM, Ljubljana, 2026