This exhibition explores how shared life forms, transmitted practices, and collective knowledgecan generate bonds of care and interdependence, beyond the bood family. What does it mean to sense kinship through fermentation?
Smells Like Kin is the result of an artistic investigation into traditional and precision fermentation practices, both within and beyond Asturias: from the passing down across generations of a mother scoby (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) to the recreation in a laboratory of blood-like flavors without involving animals animals.
The exhibition is a sensory experience around the culture of fermentation.
A series of sculptures presents the soundscapes gathered by the artists: the vibration of apples being pressed into cider, the decomposition of matter captured by hydrophones, orally transmitted recipes, and experimental sounds from the laboratory…
In the space, aromas drift and settle, activating memories and embodied knowledge. At the center of the installation, a suspended silicone membrane—cast from the concrete floor of LABoral—evokes the scoby, a living organism, that ferments, connects, and transforms
Smells Like Kin proposes fermentation a way of thinking and feeling our connection with life itself, a rehearsal of expanded relations: bonds not based on blood, but on shared practices, mutual transformation, and interspecies connection, challenging inherited ideas of belonging.
Artists: Dr. Lea Luka Sikau and 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
More information: Smells Like Kin