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Title: Club of Opportunities: The Garden of Problems
Book language: English-Czech edition
Author: Jakub Jansa
Designed by: Robert Jansa, Petr Bosák, Martin Groch
Publisher: UMPRUM
ISBN: 978-80-88308-55-3
Selling price: 550 CZK
Binding: paperback
Number of pages: 276

Annotation: The book uncovers the themes addressed in the Club of Opportunities, an episodic project created by artist Jakub Jansa, starring hybrid human-vegetable creatures who question authority and cultural and class relationships. Through the texts of the invited authors (Michal Novotný, Julie Béna, Kamil Nábělek, Noemi Purkrábková, Jozef Mrva Jr., Ernestyna Orlowska, Klára Vlasáková, Jan Bělíček), we get to the bottom of multiple problems – with celeriac ontology, black magic, humour, losing vision of the future and especially with taking root. Jakub Jansa works in various media ranging from film to sculptural elements, installations and live performances. Each of the exhibition events tends to merge with the architecture of the space they inhabit. They are reminiscent of film or TV sets where the narrative gradually unfolds through a carefully designed dramaturgy of various elements (video, objects, live action) while we – the visitors – move through the space.

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"Each episode of The Club (i.e. exhibition) introduces new characters and plot twists. Each exhibition creates a situations which hover between reality and fiction, where the narrative is gradually revealed through video, various objects, and ongoing live action.  Through mixed genres, from drama to absurdity, The Club thematise archetypal social topics and gradually uncovers the anatomy of mythology and storytelling. The main protagonist is the overlooked vegetable - Celeriac.

Club of Opportunities reflects upon strategies of dark-side influencers, posing questions of hierarchical relationships and authority. In the context of vegetable hierarchy Celeriac finds itself on very low position. In the supermarkets we can find Celeriac roots situated on the bottom shelves, Avocados are always highlighted in the center. Over the course of the past six episodes, low forms elevate in status into the high ones and vice versa. Somewhere during that transformation, new opportunities were created.

The main storyteller is Kami Nábělek, a fairly eccentric 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."

Season 1:
PAF Pioneer Works

Episode 6:
Ten Years Night

Episode 5:
Keeping in Line

Episode 4:
Britannica Bootcamp

Episode 3:
My name is Red Herring

Episode 2:
April showers bring May flowers

Episode 1:
Bowling Bar