A film directed by Jakub Jansa, created for Flower Union exhibition produced by National Gallery Prague, as part of Czech Presidency of European Union 2022, Curated by Michal Novotný.

Opening Ceremony
10min, 4K video, 2022


In the world of plants, flowers have an irreplaceable representative and diplomatic role. Now they even have their own union, an infinite union in the circle of medicinal flowers. Their garden ceremony for the opening of the presidency is given in the form of what is known as an "appreciation dinner", a type of gala dinner, in our world, held for the elites and the media. As in the people's world, a comedian is invited, here in the form of a “Celery-man”. Hybrid characters between vegetable and human.

The supernatural figure of a claivoyante, no longer able to predict the future, takes over the direction of the second part of the film, activating decorative flowers in the form of an eco-sexual festive ritual. The fortune teller shows the plants that by putting pistils and calyxes together they can reach out to the public and change the course of things. So hopefully her ability to see into the future will return.

The work is also an open homage to several works of art history, such as Annie Sprinkle's Marriage to the Earth, or John Baldessari's Teaching the Alphabet of Plants, or Taryn Simon's series of photographs depicting bouquets standing on tables during important political meetings.

Director: Jakub Jansa
Script: Jakub Jansa, Dominik Dabrowski, Alice Krajčírová DOP: Kryštof Hlůže
DOP assistant: Tomáš Merta
Editor: Sebastian Kučkovský
Music: Oliver Torr
Costumes: Overall Office (Karolína Juříková, Kristýna Nováková) Photography: Iryna Drahun
Performance: Jan Kostiha, Ester Geislerová, Kamil Nábělek, Trin Alt Vajd, Markéta Vutru, Dexton Kotora, Katsuhiro Iwashita, Veronika Čechmánková, Jakub Samek, Zai Xu, Linda Vondrová, Rokhaya Gueye, Anita Lubadika, Adéla Sobotková, Mary Nguyen, Linh Nguyen, Agáta Hrnčířová
CGI: Matěj Martinec
Production: Agáta Hrnčířová
Make-up: Majda Vaverková
Mask: Eliška Pitráková
Sound master: Nicolas Atcheson
Grading: Kryštof Melka
Lights: Tomáš Prajsler
Focus puller: Mihir Khulkarmi
Costume assistant: Františka Králíková
Cake: Růst Cakes
Special thanks: Plevel (Beáta Melková), DJ Bingo, Umprum, Vít Svoboda, Jaroslav Gazda, NG Prague

Venues:
(1) Jindřich Chalupecký Award
September 24, 2021 - 30/1/2022
Moravian Gallery, Brno

(2) Močvara Gallery, Zagreb
October 26-28 2021

Writer and Director: Jakub Jansa
Character Development: Kamil Nábělek, Jakub Jansa
Camera: Kryštof Hlůže
Sound: Oliver Torr
Performance: Jan Kostiha, Soňa Beaumont, Ester Geislerová, Jakub Jansa
Costumes: Karolína Juříková, Daily Menu
Post-Production: Šimon Hájek, Jakub Jansa
FX, Colorgrading: MagicLab, Vojtěch Štětka
Sound Recording: Juras Karaka, Tomáš Jiřička
Lights: Petr Cuker
Masks: Eliška Pitráková
Makeup Artist: Vendula Niklová
Technical Crew: Michal Pustějovský
Dramaturgy: Jan Strejcovský
Screenprinting: Matěj Doležel
Backstage Photography: Iryna Drahun
Runner: Maria Jančová
Thanks to: FAVU, UMPRUM, Autoclub ČR

The 7th episode of the Club was made for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award 2021 exhibition. It portrays Celeriac again in a surprising situation: he has symbolically moved up within the vegesociety and been invited into Avocado circles. However, he cannot relate internally to this new social class and, despite the respect he has earned, feels no sense of belonging with anyone around him. At the same time, he has already broken ties with his home environment. He experiences an intense feeling of rootlessness and the only thing that can help is a coming out of his class.

I's so physical
(6-channel video, full HD)

Venue: Meetfactory Gallery, Prague
Date: 25. 5. - 16. 8. 2020
Curator: Tereza Jindrová
Commissioned by MeetFactory for Spiritualities show including artists Jakub Jansa, Melanie Bonajo, Priscilla Telmon & Vincent Moon

   Jansa deals uniquely with collective trauma, using exaggeration and playfulness. Simultaneously, he diverts the theme of spirituality onto another path. An absurd tale about a fictitious conspiracy of tapeworms, who narrate the story, raises a sarcastic eyebrow at the idea that “leaving the body is so fucking easy today”. In the background, then, remains a question we each must ask ourselves: how do we want to, and how can we experience authentic connection with the world around us and achieve inner transformation while remaining aware of the daily material reality of all of those bodies
  → Complete text by Tereza Jindrová in PDF

Camera: Kryštof Melka, Sound design: Eva01, Sound recording: Petr Kolev, Performers: Viola Tůmová, Jan Kostiha,
Soňa Beaumont, Patrik Petr, 3D: Josef Mrva, Styling: Karolína Juříková, Photo: Studio Flusser © 2020

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES S1: PAF Pioneer Works
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: Pioneer Works, New York
Curator: PAF & Alexander Campaz
Date: November 20th, 2018

   PW presentation of The Club offered five previous episodes in one place. Exhibition created a situations which hover between reality and fiction. Through mixed genres - from drama to absurdity - The Club thematise archetypal social topics and gradually uncovers the anatomy of mythology and storytelling. Over the course of the past episodes, low forms elevate in status into the high ones and vice versa. Somewhere during that transformation, new opportunities were created.
   The main hero of the whole story is the overlooked vegetable - Celeriac. The main storyteller is Kami Nábělek, a fairly eccentric Prague philosopher who makes live appearances at The Club’s openings and then on occasion during the run of the shows. He delivers speeches full of scientific and pseudoscientific concepts and  reveals key moments in the current story.

Cast: P.Petr, J.Kostiha, E.Geislerová, K.Nábělek, Live performace: K.Nábělek, J.Jansa, Camera: K.Melka, K.Hlůže, J.Jansa, Production: PAF, A.Campaz, Nela Klajbanová Photo: J.Jansa, W. Wlodarczyk © 2018

   “April showers bring May flowers (Ep.2)” co-author: Karolína Juříková.
   Work was part PAF New York 2018, commissioned by PAF, with Pioneer Works support.

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 6: Ten Years Night
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: Fotopub Project Space
at Mihelic’s Gas Station, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Date: September 26 – October 29, 2019
Text: Dorian Batycka

The sixth iteration of an immersive multi-channel art project that explores polyphonic ideas about the nature of reality in the 21st century, albeit with a silent twist. Instead of bombarding viewers with overly didactic wall labels and long convoluted texts, the video installation is composed of narrators who debate the nature of reality from the perspective of a celery root.

→ Complete text by Dorian Batycka in PDF

Cast: P.Petr, J.Kostiha, E.Geislerová, K.Nábělek, Live performace: K.Nábělek, J.Jansa, Camera: K.Melka, K.Hlůže, J.Jansa, Graphic design: M.Groch, J.Horčík Photo: J.Jansa © 2019

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 5: Keeping in Line
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: NoD Gallery, Prague
Date: 23. 10. - 26. 11. 2018
Curator: Pavel Kubesa
Text: Domenico de Chirico

   Red Harring is here ready to fight against himself in a cerebral and almost videogame-y "mise en scène" centred around his own two battling personalities, each constantly trying to take control of his attitude towards the outside world.
   His poetry, seemingly twisted and dreamlike, is based on expanded and elaborate metaphors and his language, carefully structured and polished, turns out to be intentionally rhetorical, a sort of subversive declamation designed to deconstruct the more traditional spoken narration.
   Based on his empirical experience, he describes characters and archetypal situations deliberately transforming their nature through a motion that goes from the top down and viceversa, so as to achieve a distinctive poetry and structuring the plot from time to time to create multiple interesting themes and to show various possible points of view.
   → Complete text by Domenico de Chirico in PDF

Camera: Kryštof Hlůže, Performance: Patrik Petr, Jan Kostiha Jakub Jansa, Kamil Nábělek, Graphic design: Jan Horčík Photo: Tomáš Souček © 2018

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 4: Britannica Bootcamp
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: CEAAC, Strasbourg, France
Date: September 20 – October 28, 2018,
Curator: Elodie Gallina

Oh yes! We're here. This is the fourth episode of The Club of Opportunities. We're in the middle of a story which started a little bit earlier, let's say in some mythological proto-form and maybe the story is only starting to show itself. We don't know yet.
   Other celerists are shocked by Red Herring’s acting, but they don't know how to react. That's why they are looking for help.
They are based in the departmant called Britanica Bootcamp, reminding us of a hybrid of training camp and library. Soo, on which page to start, hm?
   → Complete text by Kamil Nábělek in PDF

Camera: Kryštof Hlůže Kryštof Melka, Performace: Patrik Petr, Ester Geislerová, Jakub Jansa, Kamil Nábělek, Sound recording: Anna Žihlová, Graphic design: Jan Horčík Photo: Jakub Jansa © 2018

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 3: My name is Red Herring
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: Fotograf Galery, Prague
Date: March 20 - April 14, 2018
Curator: Jiří Ptáček

   His allusion to the temple narthex with minimalist furniture that reminds one of store shelves, but which also breathes a rhythm of colored lights, intensifies an atmosphere that approximates a business-spiritual transaction, in which devilish demand accommodates a supply of skills that allow us to live through at least a small portion of life without a feeling of humiliation. But what if this is all just a clown-show. The series is a series only thanks to the transplanting of plants which, of course, have the gift of being able to take root in any conditions. Myth is an optional game whose rules can be changed as the moment requires. Skills are just crutches for all the legless and armless who cannot submit an alternative to force-based solutions to “social issues.” Movement in ambivalent escapism and untrustworthiness is, however, grounds for asking who exactly is Red Herring?
   The character of Red Herring, a hybrid creature between a human and a celery, is introduced. And now he’s revolting against the origin that gave birth to him, so he is revolting against the Seer. So from his safe place, inside the mythos, he enters a battlefield and wrestles on a political level. He is individualizing himself and becoming dark-side influencer.
   → Complete text by Jiří Ptáček in PDF

Celerist: Patrik Petr, Live Performace: Jakub Jansa, Kamil Nábělek, Camera: Kryštof Melka, Kryštof Hlůže, Sound recording: Anna Žihlová, Graphic Design: Martin Groch
Photos: Tomáš Souček, Anna-Marie Bergrová, Kryštof Hlůže © 2018

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 2: April showers bring May flowers
(Exhibition creates an environments, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action)

Venue: AMU Gallery, Prague
March 14 - April 4, 2018
Curator: Lumír Nykl
Artists: Jakub Jansa & Karolína Juříková

If we wanna put it simply - It’s the story in which the character of SEER (Oracle) feels anxious in this world. She looks for a way to be more active in forming the surrounding world and herself. We witness the SEER touching every individual celery root and getting them tattoo with positive predictions - or functions. She is trying to realize her own ambitiotios and desires for hope.
   The collaborative exhibition of Jakub Jansa and Karolína Juříková is the second part of a series whose pilot version originated as an invitation to Jansa’s own Club of Opportunities. The bowling bar became the setting for a seminar devoted to the ontology of celery for all the senses.
   In this new, narrative episode featuring Karolína Juříková, our intrepid heroes relocate beneath the arched ceilings of GAMU for an initiatory séance of young stalks, their hag watching from backstage, where bodies flagrantly transform with the promise of a new beginning. An old sage rambles from her ritually refurbished throne, her avuncular visage showing signs of new hope. Through the rejuvenated language of folk verbiage, we call for a new spring of shared imagination.
   → Complete text by Lumír Nykl in PDF

creature: Ester Geislerová
camera: Kryštof Melka, Kryštof Hlůže
sound: Juraś Karaka
graphic: Martin Groch,
Jan Slabihoudek
production: Lenka Střeláková

Thanks to: Lenka Střeláková,
Jakub Chrenčík, Anežka Bartlová,
Eliška Žáková

CLUB OF OPPORTUNITIES EP. 1
Bowling Bar
The Club took place at Bowling Club on July 29th, 2017 in Prague, organized by Hunt Kastner.  

Composed By Jakub Jansa
Curator: Jan Vítek
Text: Christina Gigliotti
Performers: Kamil Nábělek, Michal Šupák,
Eva Spoustová, Soňa Tichá,
Camera: Kryštof Hlůže, Kryštof Melka,
Graphic Design: Jan Horčík,
Photos: Tomáš Souček, Filip Beránek, Filip Kopecký, Julie Slauka

The first episode offered various scenarios to interact with. First, Kamil Nábělek's lecture about the ontology of the celery, which brought this vegetables to the center of a new narrative. Second, the voice of an animated chipmunk transforms visitors into performers while encouraging them to imagine new opportunities for themselves. Third, live piano baroque rendition of Rihanna’s We Found Love in a Hopeless Place can be heard.

Through mixed genres - from drama to absurdity - The Club thematise archetypal social topics and gradually uncovers the anatomy of mythology and storytelling.

As a whole, the narrative is reminiscent of a typical TV series. Each episode of The Club (i.e. exhibition) introduces new characters and plot twists. Each exhibition creates an environment, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action.

→ Complete text by Christina Gigliotti in PDF