Silence of the Mole: 61st Venice Biennale

Silence of the Mole is an exhibition project for the Czech and Slovak Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, bringing together Jakub Jansa and the Slovak artistic duo Selmeci Kocka Jusko. Developed through film, sculpture, sound and installation, the project examines the relationship between cultural representation, institutional structures and the forms of soft power that operate through seemingly familiar images and narratives.

At the centre of Jakub Jansa’s contribution is the film Silence of the Mole, which follows Mr. M., an ageing performer who has spent his life embodying the beloved children’s character of the Mole. Communicating through gestures, exclamations and simple musical instruments, Mr. M. inhabits a world shaped by play, imagination and a deliberately modest form of expression. His apparent neutrality and universal recognisability, however, gradually turn him into an ideal instrument of cultural representation.

Sent to a major international biennale, Mr. M. is expected to perform the identity assigned to him on a monumental cultural stage. The intimate language of his performances is displaced into the architecture and conventions of the art world, where it begins to lose its meaning. The sounds of his instruments gradually disappear, while the familiar figure of the Mole becomes caught between personal experience and the expectations attached to national representation.

Following the failure of his performance, Mr. M. withdraws backstage into a labyrinth of corridors and storage spaces resembling an underground burrow. The movement away from the exhibition space becomes both physical and psychological, opening a quieter territory in which he confronts the role imposed upon him.

Sound and material production form an integral part of the project. An original score and sound design by Oliver Torr develop the motif of gradually fading instruments, while specially conceived musical objects were produced in collaboration with Selmeci Kocka Jusko and Plátna Studio. Costume designer Karolína Juříková developed a woven textile specifically for the central character, further extending the film’s fictional world into the material environment of the pavilion.

Through the figure of Mr. M., Silence of the Mole considers what happens when imagination is transformed into representation, and when a familiar cultural image is asked to speak on behalf of something larger than itself. What begins as a recognisable language of play gradually becomes a story about visibility, expectation and the silence that emerges when established forms of communication cease to function.