Jakub Jansa from the FFA Performance Studio is the co-author of the winning project for the Biennale Arte 2026
The Czech Republic and Slovakia will present The Silence of the Mole at the 61st Venice Biennale Arte 2026, a project whose author team consists of Jakub Jansa, head teacher of the Performance Studio at FFA BUT, Alex Selmeci & Tomáš Kocka Jusko, and artist and curator Peter Sit. This project was selected by a jury of independent experts and representatives of the National Gallery Prague and the Slovak National Gallery as the best of seventeen proposals submitted for a joint presentation of the two countries on the occasion of the centenary of the opening of the Czechoslovak Pavilion in Venice.
The Venice International Art Biennale is a global forum and an open field for exhibiting and connecting current trends in art. Every two years, what resonates most in contemporary international artistic approaches is confronted in national pavilions and in curated exhibitions at the Giardini and the Arsenale. Chief curator of the 61st. Biennale Arte, which is entitled In Minor Keys, Koyo Kuouoh has been chosen. This theme and the curatorial concept as proposed by the Chief Curator will be respected despite her recent sudden death. Biennale Arte 2026 will take place from May 9 to November 23, 2026.
The central character of The Silence of the Mole is Mr. K., an exhausted actor who has played the character of Mole for decades. From the original embodiment of the world of childhood innocence and poetic silence, he has become the mascot of cultural diplomacy, the object of licensing and nostalgic myths. He is sent to represent the Czech and Slovak Republics as a diplomatically acceptable, politically neutral figure, but one who also embodies remorse, silence and confused identity. The Silence of the Mole develops the theme of relations in terms of Czech-Slovak coexistence, collective memory and ecological fatigue. It raises the question of what happens to the imagination when it becomes a public mask. The exhibition will appeal to a wide international audience with its visual legibility, strong emotional atmosphere and language-independent dramaturgy.
| Author | Mgr. Tímea Vitázková |
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| Short URL | https://www.favu.vut.cz/en/rad/awards-recognition/f91716/d294977 |
Responsibility: doc. MgA. Filip Cenek