Every day, we digest live microbial cultures—cheese, dough, yoghurt, cider—in the form of liquids and fermented foods.
Smells Like Kin is the result of artistic research into these traditional and laboratory fermentation practices, both inside and outside Asturias.
The exhibition presents a sensory experience around the culture of fermentation that invites visitors to smell, touch, or listen to the elements present in the gallery.
The floor sculptures show the soundscapes collected by the artists: the vibration of pressing apples for cider, the decomposition of matter recorded with hydrophones, and narratives of people who engage in fermentation in Asturias, whether as daily work, festive ritual, or scientific experiment.
In the space, aromas move and settle, activating memories and bodily knowledge. The suspended silicone membranes—moulded on the concrete floor of LABoral—evoke the scoby, a living organism that ferments, unites and transforms.
Smells Like Kin proposes fermentation as a way of thinking and feeling the connection with the living, an essay on expanded relationships: bonds based on shared practices, mutual transformations and interspecies relationships, questioning inherited ideas of belonging beyond the blood family.
Artists: Dr. Lea Luka Sikau y Denisa Půbalová
Scientist: Felipe Lombó
This exhibition is part of STUDIOTOPIA, a project (2024-2027) involving 11 European cultural and scientific institutions that aims to harness the creative synergy between artists and scientists to address a global issue: the Symbiocene. This concept, coined by eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht, imagines a future in which humanity lives in harmony with the Earth and all its inhabitants, promoting mutual development and interconnection.
Advisory Committee: María Castellanos, Grigri Projects, Felipe Lombó
Composition: Ella Kay
Collaborators: Resin Pro Espana, Embutidos La Vega San Julián, Satori fermentos, Leticia Baselgas, Carla González Suárez & Mirta Morán (Sidra Ca Pericon), Do Bongers (Basic Theory), Ana Prendes, Danny Smink (Oersoep), Kshitija Mruthyunjaya (Henchu Cafe), Fundación Cabrales
Coproduction: LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Schemerlicht
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