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.

The Club of Opportunities began as an introduction to an ontology of one celery root and his own self-being. All this takes place in a semi-natural environment, partly just in our mind. And I can prove this, because I was there. I was actually there, right at the beginning of this story and I was helping this entity be born. There I said, even though it's a trivial thought - the celery looks like a very common plant, a common vegetable which tends to be overlooked, but inside it's very very strong. Because the bulb may remind us of a skull.

And there are deeper, mysterious forces hidden inside this skull, which are somehow dissolved and unspecific. So the first episode was mostly about what celery is, and how he came to existence and what we can read from his shape and temperament. We can see his roots which are connected with the ground, and his tiny small roots disappear somewhere in the ground and become almost invisible. There they gain their strength and charge themselves by this proto-energy. 

So this is the first moment. This very first episode was mostly just a prologue. But I think the real beginning of this story goes back to Gamu Gallery. There we saw how the celery root entered the world. If we wanna put it simply - It's the story in which the character of SEER feels anxious in this world. She looks for a way to be more active in forming the surrounding world and herself. So, there we witness the SEER touching every individual celery root and giving it some positive predictions - or functions. 

Here, we can see one of the so called “Celerists” individualizing himself. We can see him as a young man, who is presenting a critique of, let's say, a natural narrative, which is something we consider elementary. By his act of revolt, he finds himself in a teenage phase, he is still looking for his real identity. And now he's revolting against the origin that gave birth to him. He discovers that this mythology is simply a narrative. Just storytelling. And if he takes control of this storytelling, he'll be able to steer it in a different direction. 

Artist: Jakub Jansa, Exhibition title: Britanica Bootcamp, Venue: CEAAC, Strasbourg, France, Date: September 20 – October 28, 2018, Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and CEAAC, Strasbourg, France

camera: Kryštof Hlůže Kryštof Melka, celerist: Patrik Petr, performace: Jakub Jansa, Kamil Nábělek sound recording: Anna Žihlová, graphic design: Jan Horčík