Jakub Jansa

Jakub Jansa (1989) is a Czech artist working across film, installation, and performance. With subtle irony and visual precision, his practice examines the mechanisms of social structures, power hierarchies, and the ideologies that shape contemporary society. He creates complex fictional worlds in which reality and imagination intertwine, becoming tools for reflecting on human rituals, uncertainties, and relationships.

At the core of his work lies the long-term project Club of Opportunities, in which Jansa, through fictional characters and multilayered narratives, weaves together humor, the grotesque, and social critique. Each episode constructs situations on the threshold between reality and fiction, interconnected with the intricate scenography of his installations. The project addresses current societal issues and explores the mutability of authority, hierarchies, and systems that, through processes of transformation, become sources of new meanings and opportunities.

A key impulse for the project originated from the artist’s encounter with an ordinary celery stalk – an overlooked vegetable that Jansa elevates into a central element of his fictional universe. This motif unfolds further through the concept of celery ontology, developed in collaboration with theorist Kamil Nábělek. The main characters – the Seer and the Celerist – across the chapters, opening themes that resonate with both contemporary societal developments and personal experience.

Jansa is a laureate of the Jindřich Chalupecký Award (2021) and will represent the Czech Republic and Slovakia at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026. His works have been exhibited at numerous major institutions, including the National Gallery Prague, Neue Galerie Graz, HEK Basel, the Athens Biennale, the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, and Pioneer Works in New York.