Maja Kržišnik
As the daughter of horticulturist Juta Krulc and wife of artist Tomaž Kržišnik, Maja Kržišnik has dedicated her career to preserving her family’s intertwined legacies. An art historian and curator, she bridges the worlds of garden design and visual art, ensuring both her mother’s ecological vision and her husband’s creative innovations endure.
Maja Kržišnik: Curator, Guardian, and Cultural Bridge
Her curatorial work includes landmark exhibitions like Juta Krulc: Life with Gardens (2015), which showcased botanical illustrations and garden plans, and Time Captured in the Drawings of Tomaž Kržišnik (2025), highlighting her husband’s experimental techniques. During Juta’s final years, Maja became her “hands,” maintaining the garden through communal “work gatherings” where locals learned sustainable practices. After Juta’s death, she launched Jutin dan (“Juta’s Day”), an annual celebration featuring guided tours and displays of her mother’s art. In 2023, she realized Tomaž’s unfinished vision by installing a statue of Juta in the garden—a poignant fusion of their shared devotion.
Cultural Steward: Education and Legacy
Maja transforms Garden Kržišnik into a living classroom, partnering with Žiri’s Tourist Society to welcome visitors and foster dialogue between art and nature. Her Dialogues project (2022) invited artists to create works responding to Tomaž’s art and the garden, culminating in exhibitions at the family’s Kržišnik Garden Gallery. She emphasizes the garden’s “synergy between plants and Žiri’s unique topography,” framing it as a repository of intergenerational knowledge. By documenting the family’s story in media, school projects, and public talks, she ensures their legacy transcends private memory. Her dual identity—translating Juta’s horticultural philosophy to art audiences and interpreting Tomaž’s work through an ecological lens—cements her role as a cultural ambassador. Today, the garden stands as both sanctuary and symbol: a testament to creativity nurtured through community, stewardship, and the seamless bond between art and landscape.
