Jakub Jansa
Pumpkinville (Club of Opportunities, Episode 9) (2024)
Vegetables are the heroes of Jakub Jansa’s universe. They populate the video installations of his ongoing series Club of Opportunities. Its protagonist is the Celeriac. Once a neglected working-class vegetable, he becomes an entertainment superstar, defying the deceitful avocados. Beloved as an embodiment of everything truthful and authentic, he then finds himself misused by toxic politicians to spread their evil messages …
This new installment follows the Celeriac’s further fate, taking the audience on a surreal, Kafkaesque journey. In dreamlike, interconnected moments, the installation charts the hero’s life after abandoning show business. He now works as a detective for the Office for the Investigation of False Traditions, looking into other supposedly authentic, truthful, and confident vegetables—only to make a series of horrifying discoveries revealing a larger conspiracy behind their rise to fame. Jansa thus comments on the fake traditions that make up much of the new nationalism’s cultural repertoire.
Jakub Jansa (1989, Prague, Czech Republic) is an artist working in various media, ranging from film to sculptural elements, installations, and live performances. His practice crosses genre boundaries from drama to absurd comedy and employs fiction, humor, and the grotesque to develop complex exhibition environments telling stories about today’s social struggles. Jansa has presented his works in Antwerp, New York, Basel, Strasbourg, Prague, Zagreb, and Ljubljana, among others, and was awarded the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize in 2021. He lives in Prague.
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24
With the kind support of the Czech Centre Vienna
Video installation
Written and directed by Jakub Jansa
Director of photography: Kryštof Hlůže
Editing: Sebastian Kučkovský
Costumes: Karolína Juříková, Valerie Jurčíková
Music and sound: Oliver Torr
Performance: Jan Kostiha, Jamilya Andreyeva, Soňa Beaumont, Patrik Petr, Peter Hosking, Olesia Adamovich
Commissioned and produced by steirischer herbst ’24
With the kind support of the Czech Centre Vienna
